
POEMS 



IRENE HARDY 



Class 




Book ^^yPf ' 
CopightN ^!!^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



POEMS 



POEMS 



BY 

IRENE HARDY 




D. P. ELDER AND MORGAN SHEPARD 

SAN FRANCISCO 

I902 



Edition limited to three hundred copies. 
Printed from type, arid type distributed. 



THE LISRARY or 

©ONGRESS 
Two COHE8 Rsoe<vf< 

DEC. 24 IPO! 

COPYRIGHT EftT^t 

CLASS eL/XXc no. 

%1 on +- 

COPY' B. 






COPYRIGHT, 1901 
BY IRENE HARDY 



• . ■ : ■ , 



The Murdock Press 
San Francisco 



TO THE MEMORY OF 
MY FATHER AND MOTHER 



*3 
l 3 
H 

15 



Table of Contents 

SONNETS 

the sonnet Page 9 

THE LOVE— SONNET IO 

A SONNET OF STARS AND THE SONNET IO 

THE SONNET IS THE VIOLET I I 

WITH THE TONGUES OF MEN AND ANGELS I I 

TO A VIOLIN 12 

THE IMMORTAL I 2 

TAMALPAIS 

BOOKS 

HERE BEGINNETH SPACE 

LAW 

MORS AMORIS 

TRUTH 1 6 

THE EMIGRANT EXILES 1 6 

TO 17 

as if it had not been? i 7 

vocations i 8 

hyacinth; a child's character 18 

the lion in the desert i q, 

browning 20 

in the cornfield 20 

BRIGHT LITTLE COMRADE 2 1 

A CHARACTER 2 1 

THE MOUNTAIN LIONESS 2 2 

CROP AND GARDEN 23 
TO A FRIEND, WITH A VOLUME OF LOWELL'S 

POEMS 23 



Table of SONNETS (continued) 

Contents 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



24 



HER CALENDAR 

ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 24 

AT BERKELEY 25 

A SHAKESPEARE READER 26 

EVENING ON THE OAKLAND HILLS 26 

TRAGEDY 2 J 

ATTAINED 2J 

A FABLE OF AMETHYSTS 28 
SONNETS OF A LOVER 



29 



SOMETIME 3 3 

A CAMEO 33 

AFTERNOON 34 
A MEMORY OF BEETHOVEN'S SONATA, OP. 27:1 35 

LIFE AND DEATH 37 

THE RAINBOW 39 

IN BLANK VERSE 

PALATIRE 

THE POINT OF VIEW 44 

A SHEPHRRD OF MEN 45 
BERYM's PARABLE 



41 



49 
AS IT BEFELL 50 

NEPHRAN AND THE LAW $6 

THE VISION OF CYRLEON 57 

IN THE GARDEN 62 

GRATIAN BY THE FOUNTAIN 64 



IN BLANK VERSE (continued) 

THE ROMANCE OF A CLOD 
A PARABLE OF APPLES 
AN INVITATION 

ULAN, THE STONE-CUTTER 

BT WOOD AND FIELD 

prelude: wool-gathering 
among the oaks 
with the field-lark 
in the field in february 
in palo alto garden 
palo alto hills 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

elian gray 

of a song and a dream 

song! sing ivy 

song: when you come 

the little gray bird 

perhaps if we knew 

a foster mother's thought 

to each other 

VERILY 

TO A. B. C. 

TRIOLET 

THE FALL OF THE LEAF: A BEAST DRAMA 
ARIEL AND CALIBAN 



68 

71 
73 

75 



81 
82 
86 



9 1 
94 



95 
97 
100 
101 
102 
103 
104 
105 
106 
107 
107 

109 
117 



Table of 
Contents 



Table of MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
Contents 



A WEDDING-DAY GALLOP 121 

THE NEW HOUSE AND HOME I 24 

NOVEMBER RAIN I 26 

A NOVEMBER POPPY I 27 

GO FORTH AND TEACH I 28 
MY BEECH-TREE 
SELF 

THE SHEPHERD'S MOUNTAIN I3I 
THE GREEK GIRL'S INVOCATION TO ATHENA 1 32 



I29 

I30 



TO THE WILD PENNYROYAL 1 33 

IN HERMITAGE WITH FANCY 137 

ODE FOR FOREFATHERS' DAY 1 43 



Poems 



SONNETS 



THE SONNET 

WRITE me a poem, fourteen liquid lines, — 
The secret of a heart, the longing of a soul; 
But mind your flowing numbers do not roll 
Their waves beyond the exquisite confines 
The little garden of the sonnet shines 

Resplendent in; and mind you quite control 
That golden strand of rimes, — one, two, — whose sole 
Reiterance your major chord entwines. 
Let not your hand a lingering moment waste 
Till it has captured, where it floats and sings, 

The birdlike thought you scarce can say you hear; 
Back to its thicket, else, it hies, untraced, 

And leaves the poor sestette with trailing wings, 
And me without the verse I hold so dear. 



THE LOVE-SONNET 

THERE lies a little mirrored pool alone, 
And far from traveled ways, this side the crest 
Of day where morning dwells; fair on its breast 
A planet shines at night, as if its own 
Flame would transform the pool into a stone 
Of splendor, fit for crowned Esther, dressed 
In coronation glory, for her quest 
Before Ahasuerus on his throne. 
This little pool, — ah, let me look therein, 

And see whence well its waters, pure and clear. 
No wiser than the bird whose image darts 
From edge to edge! Nor never shall I win 

That secret. Shakespeare knew, and she, that dear 
And great one, first in Browning's heart of hearts. 



A SONNET OF STARS AND THE SONNET 

COME watch with me, Dear Heart, the seventh 
white star 
That shines above the hill. Ah, wait seven more 
That dart red rays; recount them all before 
The new moon sets behind that cloudy bar 
Across the glowing west. What those worlds are 
My words would fain be, most of all — a lore 
To speak the heart in, tinctured to the core 
With light and flame, those orbs exceeding far: 
A little tale of red and white, — of flame 

And fire; rose-love, and lily-truth, twice told 
In mystic seven twice over; chanted yet 
Again, O Love, close to thine ear, a name 
Just audible to thee, for thee to hold 

And have until the stars themselves forget. 



10 



THE SONNET IS THE VIOLET 

THE sonnet is the violet of song, 
A flower that springs responsive to the rain 
Of tears, or to the heart when under strain 
Of joy so deep that silence would do wrong 
To life and love; then lyric phrases throng 

The thought, — intoning, rise and fall, — again, 
Again, — like evening bells in low refrain, 
As if the words the passion would prolong. 
O thou that seekest to make this little flower 
Bloom in thy garden-plot of poesy, 

Behold how dear it was to laureate kings, 
And plant thou, too, in sacred earth and hour; 
And men shall love thee in the years to be 

As one who loved and cherished loveliest things. 



WITH THE TONGUES OF MEN 
AND ANGELS 

ONE sweep of Homer's purple paints the sea 
Gurgling 'mid iEgea's islanded confines; 
One touch of Shakespeare's pen incarnadines 
The waters of the world with tragedy. 
Milton's bare word on Vallombrosa's tree 

Makes thick the leaves. And thought the mi 

resigns 
Itself to such imaginings since that it pines 
And beats against its cage for language free 
As theirs to speak out plain its life in. Star 

And sun commend the prayer for words of light: 
Perfection's rounded worlds far swinging on 
Within their shining orbits draw from tar 
The soul's desire up to a glittering height 
It had not tried had no foot further gone. 



ii 



TO A VIOLIN 

In silva viva situi: 

Jam mortua cano. — Inscription on a violin. 

O INSTRUMENT of lovely sound, art naught 
But wood and yet can be such heavenly friend ? 
Thou that wert tree once, seraph that art, commend 
Thy silences to me, till troubled thought, 
That wakes o' nights o'er little tasks half- wrought, 
Learns to be still and wait life's secret trend, 
While into every fiber life shall send 
Harmonies from archangels' choiring caught. 
So shall there be from me when I am dead 
Music immortal, sweet and searching; yea, 
The end shall never be, and I shall sing 
Away tears of the unsatisfied and say 

To hearts (that wist not how they need) what bread 
Says to the spirit when smoking censers swing. 



THE IMMORTAL 

A MAN went forth to battle once and set 
His flag upon the blackened wall of fate; 
Then when the death foreseen had made him great, 
His mourning country strove to pay the debt 
With laureled marble and with carved regret; 
She wrote his deed upon the book of state, 
She graved it, blazoned, on the palace gate, 
Dared Time himself to read and then forget. 
Yet moss-grown is that name now. None can know 
What thing was done that marble should be piled. 
But brave young hearts arise, and haste, and go 
To victory still, chanting with joyous tread 
The ballad bold that roused and reconciled 
To death that nameless one among the dead. 



12 



TAMALPAIS 

LOOK where the sunset in a glare of gold 
Outspreads a glittering net across the strait: 
You see a mountain wreathed long and late 
With opaline mists that sweep in gorgeous fold 
On fold, above, below ? So, you behold 
Mount Tamalpais, the purple, ultimate, 
Unmythic pillar of that Golden Gate 
Which opens outward, beckoning to bold 
Mariners, tempted of the winds and seas 
To seek some orient in the flaming west: 
Tempted of an inward glow to leave all 
Behind, 'scape all, and greaten out and please 
The spirit in some wider empire, guessed 
Of by that glow, conjectured by that call. 



BOOKS 

WHAT though " the glory that was Greece" I 
hold 
In fee but as a faint reflected gleam ? 
What though "the grandeur that was Rome" must 
seem 
To me forever but a tale that 's told, 
Mingled with murmurs of the dim and old 

Far sounds of remembered evenings, when a dream 
Of it, stirred by my father's voice, did stream 
Processionary through the twilight cold ? 
Far other worlds have I to travel in: 
One way far as the morning star I go, 

Hearkening to shepherd songs of David's lyre; 
Or some far isle in Prosper' s boat I win, 

By stream, and wood, and freshet springs to know 
Joy for the thought, range for the heart's desire. 



13 



HERE BEGINNETH SPACE 



I SAW a pillar rise against the sky, 
That veiled one star behind its crystal shaft; 
Slow outward moving went an oarless raft 
Seeking I saw not what ere light should die; 
All round that lonely land the rocks piled high, 
Nor signified an end, nor wit nor craft 
Of builder; winds blew fair as if to waft 
A breath of hope, but hope came not thereby. 
With utter grief so dreamed I that I dreamed; 
Wherefore, I had no sleep, for I would learn 
Where went the oarless raft; with soul aflame 
I followed on and on, until I seemed, 
Upon a shoreless ocean lone, to turn 

And flee a formless Dread without a name. 



II 

Ah, wistful soul, that cannot be at rest! 
Thou frettest in the circle drawn around 
This little world ? To others without bound 

Or limit, — yet to thee its east and west 

Are only door-posts whence thou makest quest 
For somewhat more of truth than thou hast found 
By weighing suns or atoms, taking sound 

And finding reefs and barriers thou hadst guessed. 

Behold earth's wisdom; take its measure now; 
Let thy surveyor soul be satisfied 

And know. Carry thy chain and set thy rod 

Forward, beyond, one furlong more, yet thou, 
Like all before thee born, shalt run to hide 
Thy baffled face before the feet of God. 



14 



LAW 

LAW said to the river, " Go this winding way, 
And I will go with thee, down to the sea; 
Yea, I will bring thee home again, all be, 
Through rolling clouds where hail and thunder play. 
There woven with the sunlight, ray for ray, 
Thou then wilt shine, and men beholding me 
Intimate in archangel company 
Shall gladly choose me lord and me obey." 
I saw that river meet the ocean waste: 
A ship far seaward felt beneath her keel 

A friendlier wave; a whirling tempest turned 
And fled to unsailed seas; a white bird traced 

Her homeward way. And, trembling, I could feel 
That overhead a seven-hued splendor burned. 

MORS AMORIS 

LOVE lay dead upon her funeral pyre, 
And men and angels mourned her where she lay; 
The sun's light fled, the stars all waned away, 
The lean white moon put out her silver fire. 
Said Grief, " 'T was Pride that stabbed her. Deep 
and dire 
Shall be his hell." 

" Nay, now, your harsh words stay! 
I saw him dying by her door this day," 
Wept Pity, while she wreathed a golden tire 
Of asphodel round Love's poor head. 

"To death 
I wounded her," wailed Truth. "Deep within the 

sea, 
I '11 drown myself." 

"Yet none of these, O none," — 
A whisper rose, as it were Love's last breath, — 

" Hath brought me low. Live thou, sweet Truth, for 
me: 
This deed of death Indifference hath done." 

15 



TRUTH 

MEN make thought of thee after their own 
Measure. According to their wit they sound 
Thy seas and search thy skies. When they have found 
The thing that verifies their guess, — some stone 
Too old for life carved deep with life, some cone 
Where fern should be, some square that should be 

round, — 
They make the world's broad market-place resound, 
Till earth with shattered faiths lies thickly strewn. 
Let us forbear to blame, — let us forbear! 
For wistfully upon the desert waste 

Men watch the eastern quarter of the sky; 
For wistfully, with wide eyes half-aware 

Of somewhat waiting still to know and taste, 
Youth runs to meet thee face to face and die. 



THE EMIGRANT EXILES 

LANDWARD, at dawn, we saw the forests cloud 
The high horizon's rim; we heard the song 
Of waking birds upon the shore and watched the long 
Low wave that lapping went with whisper loud 
Up to the rocks of purple gray; and proud 
Our canvas swelled to pass the savage throng 
Of monsters set with plan to do us wrong 
By some grim power those regions dire allowed. 
A sapphire sky bending a friendly dome 
Above an island where life's daily task 

May be, in peace, with simple comfort done — 
A kindly sea for us encircling home; 

O, these are all our wayworn spirits ask! 
Comes hope again with yonder rising sun? 



16 



TO 

WHEN I behold thy spirit's lofty tree 
Unwithered, rich in leaf, and flower, and fruit, 
And know it has not place to strike a root, 
Except in fields of sorrow — griefs I see 
And name not, death and loss, — my thought of thee 
Makes wreaths heroic; marveling, though mute 
Before the strength that keeps a resolute 
Great soul unharmed of its integrity. 
Thou hast laid hold on some eternal rock 
Of truth and fearest no unseen disaster 

Of time or tide; for grievous earthly things 
{Thou sayest still) are but for seasons, mock 
Our merely mortal part, and cannot master 
What knows itself above the need of wings. 



AS IF IT HAD NOT BEEN? 

A WHIRL of gnats above a twilight pool 
Falling a-crisp when summer lightnings blaze; 
A black foray from out the anthill there, 
That drowns beneath a sudden rush of rain; 
A universe of crawling atoms, dead 

Within a sun-dried inch of vagrant foam 
Stranded by slowly lapsing July pond, — 
And all is naught, as if it had not been ? 
Slow aeons, then a watery wash of air; 

Huge fronds and monster forests fallen and old; 
Myriad creatures whelmed in ribbed rocks, 
And man at last, and last, upon a whirling world; 
Then all burnt out to ashes, dead and cold, — 
And all is naught, as if it had not been ? 



17 



VOCATIONS 

" I F this be all oflife," said one who fared 
1 Along a hillward way with head perpend, 
" If this be all oflife, why, come the end! 

What good in joys one has not had and shared ? 

Yon minstrel, velvet-clad and yellow-haired, — 
The king keeps him to stare and fool and spend !- 
I would be he, would but my fortune mend; 

Forget what I aspired to, what I dared." 

He laid him down beneath a thicket shade; 
He slept a dreamless sleep and saw the world 
Anew; he rose and lifted up a stone 

And set it in a torrent's path and made 
A city safe from ruin, all but hurled 

Upon its peace by mountain tempests thrown. 



HYACINTH; A CHILD'S CHARACTER 

OFT have I seen the poet's word inspire 
His waking soul, until before him seemed 
To shine some glory from whose edge there streamed 
Into his face foregleams of high desire 
To be fulfilled. And I have seen, in fire 

And forge of conflict shaped, his will that dreamed 
Aforetime dallying with itself, redeemed 
From slavery's threat and clothed in king's attire. 
When he beheld the truth, he followed far 
To grasp it for his own. It was no grief 

To him that then he knew not why he sought; 
Day after day brought gifts of joy, and star 
On star the night prepared; so was he lief, 

And glad to know, not knowing he was taught. 



iS 



THE LION IN THE DESERT 

HERE must I crouch beneath the shriveled sage, 
Until the night comes down upon the sand 
A-scorch with fiery day, where it has spanned 
With senseless blue the desert's biting rage 
At beast and bush, since morn, as if to wage 
A war of hate on all the hollow land. 
Here must I lie alone, a-thirst, unfanned 
By stir of leaves, trapped in the sun's own cage. 
I know the bare pool by the dead cliff's foot; 
If the fierce sun lap it not all ere dark 

As he laps my blood now, I '11 bring her there, 
My mate, panting yonder at the hot root 

Of that white rock, — gate of the devil's park 
Wherein the red sun finds his nightly lair! 



II 

Ah, drink, poor mate, here in the shrunken pool, 
Enough, now, till, when the darkest dark drops black, 
We follow forth the sprinkled shining track 
Of the unhurting stars, slow by the cool 
Flow of low streams; the desert shall not fool 
Our footsteps out across its flaring rack 
Again, nor take oar blood, nor toll us back 
To grisly empires where the sun has rule: 
For we are masters of the world, not he; 

The night is always ours; not even the stars 
Have dared to interfere, and the high moon 
Goes by her own white path, though she can see 
Ours leads the best way. There no desert bars, 
And cool in thickets deep we '11 sleep at noon. 



19 



BROWNING 

i860 

MEN said there were no ways that they could climb 
The mountain some could see. Nay, more, they 
said, — 
Beholding as through mist its veiled head, — 
It was no mountain, but a cloud; or time 
Would prove it but a barren, unsublime, 

And cheerless country; neither grain for bread, 
Nor in its purlieus, bloom for honey spread; 
Not order but confusion all its rime. 

1890 
But now it is men's joy to find twelve ways 
To one clear spot; and yet to find too dim 
No shade, no bough vociferant with leaves 
Upon the mountain. Ay, they haste to praise 
The clouds they see on the horizon's rim, 

Where, sovereign and serene, the great cone 
cleaves. 

IN THE CORN-FIELD 

ENCOMPASSED close by ranks of bladed corn, 
Where shade and shine their harmless rapiers cross, 
Where dallying airs the yellow cornsilk toss, 
Upon the earth at rest and unforlorn 
Though all alone, I lie in tranquil scorn 
Of nearer care or far to-morrow's loss; 
And if above my head 'tis silken floss 
That floats, or cloud, I '11 think to-morrow morn. 
For, oh, it is enough to lapse into a dream 
And let the wearied heart its pulsing slow; 
Enough to feel the folding air at play 
On brow and cheek, and watch the stream 

Of downward sloping leaves, and come and go 
In thought with them, as forth and back they sway. 



BRIGHT LITTLE COMRADE 

BRIGHT little comrade from the woods, come show 
Thy antic cheer about my sunlit room 
Of books, that stand in moods of gloom 
Because thought's tide is out, heart's rhythm is low 
With weariness. Friendly thou art and know 
Good friend in me, who yet did dare presume 
To take thee from thy home, thy little doom 
To make for thee, and longer life bestow. 
So, thou hast not been eaten by the snake; 
Thy gentle blood no weasel drank at night; 

Thou hast not starved 'mid winter's frozen wood, 
Nor waited vainly for the sun to make 

Sweet the wild nuts for thee. Yet, little sprite, 
Thou still doth question if my deed were good ? 



A CHARACTER 

"Different from himself." — Plutarch. 

YEA, it is true, my soul, yet hard to say: 
His outlook has no mountain nor no sky; 
Ships of his mart are ever sailing by 
On some mean errand, though he knows the way 
To lands Elysian. You could name no day 
Of his not stained with lowest self, nor pry 
Into his thoughts and not appalled fly 
The downward drawing of his soul of clay. 
Yet moods there are of his that burn with gleams 
Of archangelic fire, — that re-illume and stir 

His coarsely-vestured soul, till, as once it shone, 
Illuminate it shines; to doubt him seems 
The caviling of an envious mind, a slur 

For which devoted love could scarce atone. 



21 



THE MOUNTAIN LIONESS 



I HAD remembered it, the crunch of bones, 
Almost too vividly to merely look 

And let them pass, the woman with a book, 
And that fair child with plaything cones 
And bits of pebbles, while across the stones 

Of my own spring he tripped and shook 

The very brake where I lay hid, and took 
A rose as one takes lightly what he owns. 
I had remembered it, and hunger lean, 

Low crouching 'neath the brier, into his face 
Breathed hotly through the tangled, fern-thick screen: 

So close I breathed, so fierce, as to displace 
His yellow curls, as though a wind blew by; 
No other harm! This beast-pent soul knows why. 

II 

I was a woman once, a mother, — God, 
That I remember it! that I still know! 
I had a child like that; and 't was my woe 

That, being beautiful, I therefore trod 

The hearts of men as leaves upon the sod, 
And tasked my soul its uttermost to show 
That men the love of angels would forego 

Even for my meanest smile, my faintest nod. 

I let him die with him that loved us both; 
Then men despised me, and I died to this: 

A soulless beast, whose yellow whelps were loth 
To own her, so died too. Oh, even to miss 

Even then might make me loathe myself so deep, 

My soul, long dead, would come to life and weep! 



22 



CROP AND GARDEN 

THE rent within the cloak thy neighbor wears 
Forbear to see; forbear to know that bread 
Comes coarse to him and served on delf, yet dread 
To lose the word his life unwitting spares 
For salt to thine. Forthright, as on he fares 
In tranquil frame although his heart has bled, 
And still aches on with tears he must not shed, 
Haste with what help thou hast for all he bears. 
Behold, there, how thy crop and garden grow, 
Erect in sunshine, sweet in fruit and seed; 

See how they give, not counting loss or gain; 
They have not wicked wit enough to know 
Preeminence of right above the wilding weed 
To gifts of light, to treasures of the rain. 

TO A FRIEND, WITH A VOLUME OF 
LOWELL'S POEMS 

F. C. T. 

A YELLOW sapphire set in frosted gold, 
A charm of purple sardius subtly chased, 
A silken scarf with golden broideries traced, 
A blood-red rose, a bud of rarer mould, 
A poet's book with untold tales out-told, — 

Which shall it be? With heart's warm wisdom 

graced 
This milestone on your highway newly placed 
Your friend would mark in fashion sweet and old. 
And so what this gift can will let it say, 
As trusting its interpreter to find 

Remembering moments as he goes the way 
This book shall lead him, when his gladdened mind 
But faintly conscious of a thought's delay, 

May feel, e< Thine, too, the impulse of this day." 



23 



HER CALENDAR 

S. M. M., Jan. 16, 1886. 

WE do not count her age by days and years, 
But by the constant summer in her face; 
Not by the sorrows that have brought her tears, 

But by the faith that takes away their trace; 

Hence have we kept in warm familiar place 
Such record, — be we younger, — as endears 

All that she is to us, and adds a grace 
To each till each as old as she appears. 
But we, who older walk with her, have caught 

That chrism, too, that doth her life enrich; 
For the high faith which in her soul hath wrought 

Reflects a light on ours from that fair niche 
Wherein our hearts, in love for her made bold, 
Have set her that she never may grow old. 



ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF 
SCHOOL CHILDREN 

THEY say we praise too much this lyric land, 
Its bloomy plains, its mountains bold and high; 
With orient phrase and metaphor, we dye 
Its golden rivers and its wave- warm strand; 
There where our homes, by sea-winds faindy fanned, 
'Mid lucent-clustered vines and orchards lie, 
We dwell, complacent that no other sky 
Rounds its blue dome above a clime so grand. 
Is this a grievous fault, if it be true, 

To love our land ? But never let them say 
O bright expectant throng, sun-pictured here, 
That Nature showers in vain her gifts on you. 

Lo, with these splendors you may match your day. 
And greaten all the glory of the year. 



24 



AT BERKELEY 

E. R. s. 

THIS place will love one poet first and best, 
1 Whoever comes hereafter. Not a stone 
That lies along the hillward path alone 
Where he has trod, but there his eye would rest 
As on a friend, should he return in quest 

Through haunts remembered; nothing he has known 
And praised but still would choose him as its own 
Interpreter and best beloved guest. 
Some souls there were who thought the bramble vine 
That twitched his sleeve to offer fruit or flower 
Had more than blessedness enough; while they 
Found no good words to speak their debt or shrine 
Their love in; some recorded the one hour 
They heard his voice as life's own natal day. 

Wise hearts have conned his wisdom, line on line, 
And fools have left their thrones and learned to pray; 
And those who loved him most love most his way 

Of still withdrawal, — love, and make no sign. 



25 



A SHAKESPEARE READER 

AN island where illusive voice and scene, 
To lead them to the truth, led men astray; 

A leafy wood astir with pastoral play; 
A castle cursed with demon king and queen; 
A palace brightened by the sunny sheen 

Of Portia's locks, — these fancy could portray 

With pallid brush; then they would fade away 
Like painted landscapes on a magic screen: 
But show us, thou interpreter, the wand 

That Prosper buried certain fathoms deep! 
Thou hast its potent art. With voice and hand 

Conjure, — we follow to that orient steep 
Which overlooks the Shakespeare tableland, 
And there, entranced, 'mid living landscapes stand. 



EVENING ON THE OAKLAND HILLS 

NOW from the dusk that visits field and hill 
I hear the tumult of the mist-veiled town, 
An evening murmur of repose sink down, 
Till in the peace of night the world is still. 
One bird sings on with reminiscent trill 
Of daylight lyrics on the leafy crown 
Of thickets deep, where lies, 'mid shadows brown, 
His little home, vine-hid from every ill. 
Half-heard, the iron causeway's clangor holds 
In check the movement of the memory, 
And life seems all a picture, far and faint. 
The old sea pauses, far away the folds 

Of his gray vesture flings in foam-bands free, 

Curves round the crags, and lies in lulled restraint. 



26 



TRAGEDY 

"The tragedy is not his (Rousseau's); but the 
tragedy is the world's, that it should have had to 
endure him as the master of its thought, its leader." 

NOT that, O World, thy grave diurnal round 
Beheld the heart of man unreconciled 
To such a lot as thou hadst given thy child; 
Not that man's thought was red with blood, or bound 
In prison by his brother's hate, or wound 
Within the web of destiny or wild, 
Dark death's; nay, not because of these up-piled, 
Do fear and pity all my soul astound: 
But that, O World, processionary moved 
Thy nations, — this unto its doom, and this 
To starlike state, marshaled thereto by fate, 
Wrapped up in one fire-shafted word, amiss 

From mouth ignoble, while thy prophets proved 
Un-Delphian, dumb, not daring to be great. 



ATTAINED 

A STATELY metaphor they carved for her 
In far-brought marble on a splendid tomb, 
Among rare roses in the scented gloom 
Of ancient groups of fir and juniper. 
As if the thought engrailed mournings were 
Full reparation for a sad fore-doom, 
Scarce had she gone from out her lonely room 
When shadowing draperies made the day a blur. 
Yet now the joy of birds in morning song, 
The noonday quiet in the lanes of leaves, 

The hope of dawns, the spheral peace of night, 
All come to that proud spot; there starbeams throng, 
And immemorial Nature smiles and weaves 
That heart's long grief into her web of light. 



27 



A FABLE OF AMETHYSTS 

SERAPHAEL wooed a woman angel fair, 
And laid his life before her fateful feet. 

She laughed, — her laughter was most sweet, — 
And tossed him back from out her twisted hair 
A blood-red rose, — his hand had placed it there; — 

" Take back your rose, yourself, and go repeat 

This tale," she said, " to her whom next you meet; 
For such fine playthings she perchance may care." 
And thus his heart's great fervor won away, 

She threw aside as lightly as his flower, 
For him, this made a lifetime's bitter day; 

For her, the triumph of an idle hour; 
For him life paused, its currents turned astray, 

Love died and Hate seized all her princely dower. 

II 

Then fell Seraphael's tears upon the ground 

Across the purple flower he held and kissed; 

Then rained the purple drops like hail through mist 
And fell pale Muriel's woful feet around; 
Her pale and paler growing hair unbound, 

That was of shredded gold a wondrous twist, 
Her cheeks, her azure eyes, so unprofound, 

All sank dissolved and froze to amethyst. 



What if my fable be in thought absurd ? 

Two seeds of truth lie in its crabbed core; 
And man may read anew what he has heard 

Since woman's face its blush of beauty wore; 
And woman feel again the truth which stirred 

Her heart at Eden's closed and flaming door. 



28 



SONNETS OF A LOVER 



I 



J KNOW not, O God, what chrism shall be mine, 
1 Of loss, thorn-crowned, or love supreme and whole; 

But let it be that I may bear my soul 
Blameless though afraid before that divine 
Ark, where 'mid angels' wings thou didst enshrine 

The Nobler Love. Take Thou of thought control 

Until upon my breast the sacred stole 
Of Love's investiture may fitly shine. 
Thou dost instruct me; light is not withheld; 

I would exalt myself to that I know, 

For her whom I shall choose; for her would rise 
Above myself; for her would haste, compelled 

To holiest heights of being, there to go 
Comrade of stars, frequenter of the skies. 

II 

Could you let my heart speak, O lady fair, 
And tell how, ever exalting love and you, 
It has uplifted life and led it through 
The lowlands, up the high and sunlit stair 
Of duty, — oh, if you could, you might care 

A little for this rose, — love's blossoming true, 

Sprung by the path where you have brushed the dew 
In passing; and a little I might share 
The thought thus wakened, and a little cherish 
This rose, that wistful rears its tender head 

Looking to Love's domain; there would it shrine 
Its joyous boughs about our home, nor perish 

Though thou and I were numbered with the dead, 
Though there thy heart lay buried low with mine. 



29 



Sonnets of III 



a Lover 



A bird sings in the garden of my heart, 
And all day long I hear its carol clear; 
At night it folds its gentle wings so near, 

Its tender pulsings stir my blood and start 

The tears within my eyes to think love's art 

Should stay her wings with me and make so dear 
The rude wild bowers of my demesne, nor fear 

But she should find her spirit's counterpart. 

All day I go resolved and thinking how 

To make more sweet for her that garden place; 
How I will pluck away the weeds, the rose 

Of love to plant there for her nesting-bough; 
How I will sehool my heart to every grace 
That it may be her home, her one repose. 

IV 

As Dante's soul uplifted, whiter grew 

When thinking Beatrice's prayer would be 
For his ennobling, so mine turns to thee, 

My heart's astronomer, to find the clue 

To guiding stars yet hidden from my view, 
But risen to thine. The clouded orbs I see 
Through mists of earth, barely suffice to me 

To show the devious path I still pursue. 

Could I conspire with the archangel there 
Before thy heart's flame-guarded paradise! 
Fear not, sweet spirit; 1 should walk unshod 

Its ways, and kneeling where thou kneel' st at prayer, 
If I should hear my faltered name, arise 
Assured of life, of love, of thee, of God. 



3o 



V Sonnets of 

Lady, thy goodness shone to me from far, a over 

Long ere my soul beheld its luminous ray 

Of high serenity athwart my way 
As certain light from some invariable star. 
So have I seen in desert paths the spar 

Of dim white crystal gleaming in the gray 

Of night; so have I known that reflex play 
Imaged an orb whose lights eternal are. 
Tranquil with hope, straight on I fare, and find 

Clear ground before me, since one white star beams 
Constant, though far, along the path I go. 
Wherefore, to that benignant light I bind 

Observance, till, O greatener of my dreams, 
I come to thee, life's highest lore to know. 



VI 

WITH A TREE-CONFIDANT 

Voiceless thou art not. Speak thy word to me! — 
Forthrightness and strength and the patient ways 
Of faith when stormy seasons bring amaze 

And make the blood through backward gateways flee. 

Prevent my soul's recession! — Not to thee, 
O, not to thee, beneath these boughs I raise 
This cry! Thy steadfastness my spirit stays 

But builds not all my hope, thou friendly tree. 

Father of love and life, take thought of me 

These fateful days, that I my growth may grow 
Skyward to thee, worldward where service lies, 

Whether blow winds of cloudy destiny, 

Or heaven's warm arch bend close and low, 
Prefigured in my love's consenting eyes. 



3i 



Sonnets of VII 

Wear inviolate vesture, O my soul, 

When now thou enterest thought's removed shrine. 

Thou canst not be alone there; 'tis no longer thine 
To shut the door and keep the key's control. 
Unshared, thy table's daily bread and bowl 

Had grown unsweet, — wanting the mystic sign 

That makes of every common dish a meal divine, 
The morsel that love shares more than the whole. 
That this dear guest may stay to dwell with thee, 

Make yet more fair thy house's garniture. 
Her wings that nestle to thy happy breast 
Must grow content, stronger by flight with thee 

For higher heavens, whence higher still to lure 
Thee on to love's eventual haven, rest. 



32 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



SOMETIME 

THERE is a ship named Sometime; 
Men dream of it, and wait; 
One on the shore, impatient, 

One at the household gate, 
Thinking: " If it come not in the morn, 

Then in the evening it may." 
But one I knew, not thinking of ships, 

Worked till the close of the day, 
Lifting his eyes at evening-time, 

There his ship at anchor lay. 



A CAMEO 

SHE bowed her head above a book: 
I saw her face in shade; 
The beauty of her tranquil look 
The book's reflection made. 

Her hand lay white upon the page, 
Her hair, dull gold, hung low; 

Or whether bard she read, or sage, 
Little I cared to know. 

A pleasant picture, purely set, 
Its mood all fair, though grave, 

The virtue of an amulet 
To my remembrance gave. 



33 



AFTERNOON 

WHAT, then, that winds blow chill along the 
shadowy waste, 
The sky is afternoon, and homeward flock the birds, 
And lonely sound my loom-strokes in a lonely room ? 
Perennial burns my fire, and calm and pleasant-spaced 
My day was, fair with color, interwoven words 
Of friend and book; so, brave and cheerily went my 
loom. 

What, then, that, day's work done, a lonely supper 

waits, 
A lonely evening lamp when all is done ? 
The faithful firelight warms a tender opaline gloom, 
Where stands my yet unfinished web, inwoven with 

dates 
Of purple, buds of rose, and sky of blue, and sun 
Of heaven' s imperial noon; so, cheerily goes my loom ? 

'Twere easy — yes! — to weep because the thread 
Turns from the pattern here, and there, and here; 
But I laid not the warp that works my weal or doom; 
The woof was dyed ere I could know, or choose, or 

dread. 
The power that laid the varying strands is ever near 
And measures all; so, brave and cheerily goes my loom. 



34 



A MEMORY OF BEETHOVEN'S 
SONATA, OPUS 27:1 

N. V. 

A FACE impassioned over ivory keys, 
An open window and a saffron sky; 
Roses 'gainst the dark of cedar-trees, 
A-rustle with belated birds the house-wall nigh; 
A grave contralto's sudden cry 
From some compelling height of song; 
A hush of voice, a slumbrous throng 
Of half-roused chords, that fain, — 
Forlorn with wordless joy or pain, — 
Would seek the hand's control, 
And wake at last in one exultant whole 
Of overmastering song: 

A roar of storm-szvept woods! The beat of waves, 
And streaks of meager moonlight through the dark; 
Then peace upon the waters, calm in ocean caves. 
And stir of early morning fields, where lark 
And linnet still are reticent of song, 
And all so right within the world that nothing can go 
wrong. 

If the blue sky would ever be so blue! 
If the hearts of men would ever be so true 
As now they seem! 

Now, dawn on a far wide plain, and a slow river* s 

pace, 
And rising morning winds across a flowery space, 
And — follow, follow to the mountain* s rugged base! 

Up, up a stony way into the clear and high. 

The heart will ache so, here, to think that men must die, 

When all so beautiful a world around will ever lie. 

35 



A Memory O Memory, no more, no more! 

The hyacinthine brow bowed long ago to death. 
Still are the ivory keys; forever closed the door; 
The rose and cedar, mingled in a breath, 
Are shadows mingled on the wall; 
Year after year the rose returns; 
With sunset lights the autumn burns; 
Leaves grow old and fall, 
And winter stillness quiets all. 



36 



LIFE AND DEATH 

TWO angels, clad in untouched white, 
Met, once, upon a highway near the sea. 
One wore a smile of summer light; 
The other's look was that the midnight has 
When stars crowd close the solemn sky — 
Tender, sweet, convincing. 

This, a golden goblet, shining to the brim 

With living water, pure and clear; 

And he, that other, held a chalice 

Dim and deep and empty, 

Save for one half-clinging drop. 

" Whither goest, angel ? " said the smiling one, 

While yet they stood, in doubt, apart. 

" To yonder palace, brother sweet, 

Unto the queen. And whither thou? " 

" Unto the prince, her son, that is to be.'' 

«* If must be, hand in hand we go," 
Said Life, and bowed his shining head; 
" It must be, brother, but I follow thee, 
And, lingering by the door, I wait 
Till thine own errand is fulfilled. ,, 

So Life went in; and Death awaited there, 
Then, closely following, stood beside the queen. 
The other pressed him back, — "Too late! " he cried, 
"It is too late! she knew not what she did, 
And snatched my goblet, drinking half." 



37 



Life and ** Yet would she rather, had she known, 

Death Have taken mine," mused Death. 

"Ay, or no, I cannot tell," said Life; 
" For may the prince be better served 
With half, than all the lotted years, 
And may the world be better served 
With half a life this mother guides — ' ' 
"Ay, or no, we cannot tell," mused Death. 

Then, hand in hand, they left the hall, 

And Sleep, soft trailing through the chamber-door, 

Stooped low above the mother queen, 

And lapped the infant prince in dreams. 



38 



THE RAINBOW 

AS to the perfect round, ere it be gone, 
My thought will flash that wondrous arc, 
By sun and rain inevitably drawn 
Upon the opposing distant dark 
Of cloudy sky or thinnest lawn 

Of hovering mist, I hark 
To some clear voice that, like the dawn, 
Arises, making morning in the mind. 

It bids me find 
The center of events that seem 
Irrelevant as a dream, 
The accidents of time and space; 
It bids me never trace 
The pattern of myself upon a life 

To measure what may be its worth, 
Nor think that, since I see no strife, 

But only blue-sky living, joy and mirth, 
I know the curve that sweeps away 
Into the unfathomed soul's interior day; 

It bids me frame, with lofty fear, 
More purpose into day and year, 
Since that I live at all may flame 
Into a sunrise for a soul, 
Or flare into a sunset of eternal dole. 

It bids me draw 

An arc of splendor without flaw, 

Of faith and hope and love, these three, 

About this point, this life; an arc to be 

Full-rounded in eternity. 



39 



IN BLANK VERSE 



PALATIRE 

PALATIRE," — a name, and nothing more in 
word, 
Upon a leaning gravestone in the shade 
Falling across that churchyard by the wood, 
Where lie the generations of my race 
Who held this land when living was a war 
With elemental things. I knew her not 
By any hearsay in my father's house, 
And he, who, oldest, leaned upon his staff 
To hear the preacher in the little church 
On quiet summer days, but shook his head 
And answered, when I asked, "None know! None 
know! " 

Often I went, when shadows slanted long, 
Softening the white and gray memorial stones 
And dimming darkened churchyard tree and flower, 
Sat near, and thought of unmourned Palatire, 
And brushed away the swathing grass to read 
Once more her name and age: just " Palatire," 
Born such a time, died then, — from date to date 
But seventeen years and three poor barren months, 
The stormiest of the winter time. 

Alone 
Her grave was, yet near by the crowded row 
That bore my own ancestral name on stones, 
Here old and mossed, there carved with new device 
From unstained marble. Other graves as old, 
As low and sunken, lay in groups around, 
But none like this, alone. 



41 



Palatire As once I sat 

In that still mood that marks the end of day 
Upon the reverent mind, I heard the sound 
Of wheels that stopped upon the graveled way; 
But turned not, sheltered by the wall of hedge, 
Until close by I felt the fall of steps 
Deep in the deep long grass, and saw, — unmarked 
Because they noticed not, — an aged pair; 
She leaned upon a staff, but he, erect 
And stately, led her by the hand with care 
That meant the tenderest love, close to the grave 
Whose loneliness so much had moved my heart. 
«« This is the place, Salome; and here she lies 
Who would have been my wife ere I met you 
Had she not died upon that winter day 
That else had seen us wed. Look up, Salome, 
Dear Heart! Weep not for seventy years ago." 

" O Heart, kind Heart, I weep to think what she, 
This pale sweet Palatire, has missed and lost 
In missing life and losing you, — these years, 
These lovely years of joy and grief with you. 
Had she no kindred that she lies alone ? ' ' 

"She was the last of name and line, and turned 

In grief away from her old home to find 

Some balm in western lands for loss and dearth. 

One happy autumn we together dwelt 

In friendly neighborhood, and then we found 

That home to each must mean a home for both; 

And then she died. And restless, I could stay 

No more where nothing was that did not speak 

Of loss. Westward, away to wild, unbroken wood 



42 



I went for change medicinal to mind, Palatire 

And, hewing out from forest deeps a home 

Of field and orchard, caring not for whom, 

I found at last the peace of mind and heart 

That patient purpose gives, and better light 

Upon the ways of God confirms. 

Years passed, 
And I met you, whom first I saw because 
You stepped like Palatire; and when you spoke 
Some trick of voice like hers awoke the thought 
That yours was such a soul. I looked with eyes 
That had not cared to see a woman's face and saw 
A clear soul look from eyes as clear, and marked 
The slender hand, the moss-dyed gown, the coil 
Of brown-black hair with curlings at the neck, 
And went and walked the woods and thought of you, — 
Of Palatire, and then, — you know the tale, 
For I have loved to tell it oft to you, — 
How I loved you for Palatire, and still 
Loved both the more, the more I dwelt with you. 
The story of our life," — 

But in the dusk 
They passed; I heard no more but wheels 
That crunched the graveled path, then echoing hoofs 
Receding in the dark. Nor ever knew whence came 
Nor whither went these lovers of the days 
Of olden time. 

I broke a trailing branch 
Of roses from the hedge and in the dusk 
I laid it on the grave of Palatire 
And marveled as I sought my woodland trail 
Upon the gracious tears of sad Salome, 
Upon the love of seventy years ago, 
Alive and sweet, unchanged in those sweet souls. 



43 



THE POINT OF VIEW 

THERE rose a star; heaven-circling ways it kept, 
As other stars, and shone to men as they, 
Or less, or more; but as I looked, its rays 
Concentered on the darkened truths of life, 
Upon my vision, never clear and whole, 
Full flashed with whitest light. 

« « But therefore, then, 
I have not named this heavenly star the sun 
For all men' s lighting ? ' ' Nay, but yet to me, 
The visual angle makes that star the sun. 

I march upon this parallel ; I never say 

How shine the stars from that. I do not know. 

It is a truth of awe that I can use 

The stars to find my bearings as I go; 

Of joy, that other eyes from other points 

Find theirs by whatso stars or sun they choose. 



44 



A SHEPHERD OF MEN 

" 1MOW thank the Lord for this," said Barasan, 

1 1 "Though I must dwell among the hills and fields 
And feed my sheep, while other men in tents 
May take their ease; though I must wear coarse wool 
Nor eat except that I may live and serve, 
I am not, therefore, pent in mind, nor scant 
Of soul, in want of visions. You forget 
I have the stars; they speak to me by night 
And march in white processions up the sky, 
While I look on and name my joys by them. 

"And you forget: I have a friend I saw 

And heard — but never spoke to, — once: that priest 

Who dwells above among the rocks, away 

Far off, half up that mountain blue; his light 

Gleams down of nights until I think it seems 

One more upon my strand of mercy-gifts, 

The stars he dwells companioned of no less 

By day than by imperial summer nights. 

"I do not know him, but what then ? I know 
What I should hope to be if I were he. 
I saw him once and marked what kind he seemed: 
A dark-browed man, and large of frame and will; 
Steady of eye and thought; he might have led 
The battle -lines of kings; he might have held 
The reins of nations; yet he chose just this, — 
To lead men's souls until they learn to go 
In white through all the dust and moil of life, 
Then on to larger living, better ways. 
« How hath he done it ? ' I have wrought this out 
Upon my hills, among the brooks and fields, 



45 



A Shepherd At those still times the flocks would choose to rest; 

of Men The sky, the soft white clouds companioned me; 

Yea, Maracandan solitudes are mine, 
And no man hinders that I think my thoughts. 

'* Thus I conceive my priest —though only once 

I saw his face, and heard his compelling voice — 

Did choose his lot and make it holier still 

As he himself grew on to larger life: 

First, there was struggle in his soul; for that 

Some touch he would not own had made him see 

His will were evil were it all his will. 

" Long, long he would not yield; and long he strove 

Beneath the stars, beneath the blue of noon, 

To prove himself his own. A gentle hand 

He dared not thrust away lay strong on his; 

And in his heart he heard a voice that said, 

* Thy will is not thine own; but make it mine, 

And then it shall be.' Still did Pharimond, — 

Thus is he named, — resist and look away, 

And strive to hide the tumult in his soul 

From his own soul. 

Then on a day there came 
A message from the king: * Come, lead my chiefs 
And all their hosts.' At thought of conflict flashed 
His face, his eyes, with splendid wrath and fire. 
The Hand withheld. Yet would he not so yield, 
But fled away among the rocks of barren hills 
And took no food nor rested many days. 



46 



"At last, beneath a lonely platan-tree, A Shepherd 

O'erweighed by his sad heart, he slept in peace. of Men 

As in a dream, he saw approaching far 

Along the stony vale a shining troop, 

That seemed on errands faring through the world; 

And all the throng passed on, while one came near, 

Who bore a golden scroll, a pilgrim staff; 

The silver mist of his white robe swept round 

Him like a cloud, enfolded Pharimond 

Like some great hour of peace; the Face shone down 

Upon him where he lay, shone through him, — soul, 

And self, and body, — melted his hard will 

And clarified the cloud of self, till cloud 

It was no more. 

Then he was left alone; 
And in his dream the staff lay by his side, 
The scroll lay in the hand of Pharimond; 
And in the dream he rose and read the scroll; 
But what he read I cannot tell, nor would, — 
Although I know, — for he, as now I think, 
Would tell no man. 

When Pharimond awoke — 
You must believe ! — there lay in his left hand 
A yellow platan-leaf, and near his right 
A stout dry branch with curling bark half-shed, 
That fell away and made a perfect staff. 
He stood one moment there, adjusted thought 
And life to some new impulse, then with leaf 
And staff he followed through the vale the way 
His dream had made the angels go. 



47 



A Shepherd Near by 

of Men He found a trickling spring and drank new strength 

From out his platan-leaf, that folded deep 
Into a cup. Ripe berries to his hand 
Thrust out on branches full. Why, once, myself, 
I found them, when too faint to think 't was strange! 

" Haply you think my friend mistakes his call 

That lives a mountain hermit, far remote ? 

So I, if to himself he lived. But take 

That path which leads by yonder platan-tree, 

And follow by, until you meet him there 

Upon the mountain side. Sit one hour still 

And hear him speak of other worlds than this, — 

But O, of this, and life forever, life 

Here and now, and of duty, heaven-decreed 

And beautiful. Hear him speak; then 

Go mark what you must be to other men 

All your days after. Thus he lives in lives 

All through these vales and hills; in barren wastes, 

In palaces and huts, and tented fields, 

In potency of life and thought, infused 

In soul of peasant, soul of king. 

See, now, 
My flock will feed along the evening's edge 
Until the moon looks over yonder hill, 
And I must follow on this other way. 
But you must find him. Yonder is his light." 



BERYM'S PARABLE 

THUS Berym to his mates, among the sheep, 
About the hillside folds at set of sun, 
Babbled a story ere he slept the sleep 
The weary love: 

Three swords to his three sons 
An ancient king of eastern splendor gave; 
Save two, each hilt all other hilts outshone; 
Save two, each blade might never meet and match 
With equal edge, and those in brothers' hands 
Were turned from each. 

The eldest prince, child-wise, 
And eye-prudent, so precious held his gift 
He hid it in a box of carven oak, 
Lapped 'round with nard in scarves of Maracand. 
The second, in a pleasure play of arms 
Next day, lost his and laughed away the loss. 
From nine great battles conquering came the third, 
The youngest prince, whom time, nor chance, nor 

place 
Had found unguarded of his father's gift. 



49 



AS IT BEFELL 

PHIRAL strode homeward in the early dusk, 
A sickle on his arm. Between the trees 
Along the wooded path lay yellow streaks 
Of sunset. A little streamlet from a spring 
Loitered among the cress and widened there 
Where herds returning stopped to drink. 

Onward 
He passed and hardly knew he saw at glance 
A moth of dingy wing lie sprawling flat 
Upon an ox-track pool. Smiling he went, 
Thinking of her he loved: " O tender heart, 
And gentle hand — and gentle hand ? I think 
I see her now. She would have lifted out 
The little moth with pitying words." 

He turned, 
And stooping found the half-unheeded pool 
And set the creature on a hazel twig, 
And singing crossed the meadow-land below. 

Years, but scarcely years, went by, and she 
Offender heart and gentle hands was now 
Fond wife to him and mother to his child. 
And life and all went healthily and well. 

Now in that land the king was sick and lay 
Slow languishing. " Give me," at length, he cried,- 
As sick men use, wanting they know not what, — 
" Give me to eat of roasted apples, fruit 
Of that high garden-tree I love." 



50 



" Yea, lord, As It Befell 

What chanced has no man told ? A blight of worms 
Fell on the orchards here in all thy realm, 
In blossom-time. But four days' journey brings 
From Valore's hills the fruit thou cravest so. 
Royal word and gift discovering out 
Of all thy youth the swiftest, him shall send." 

And Phiral was the swiftest; him they found 

And sped in double haste to serve the king. 

And Phiral' s wife took counsel of herself, 

Thinking how their one little child would miss 

His father's face and weep uncomforted. 

« « Why should it be so long ? Four days and nights 

Will make my darling ill, and all for what ? 

One tree bears apples all as good as those 

Upon another; all's the merest thought, 

If you but will. Too far is Valore's land. 

Turn thou aside and take thy way to Lorm 

And get thee in at Barvan's gate, that soon 

Thou mayst return; the better for the king, 

For thee, and me, and little Svane. O haste!" 

Nor Phiral nor his wife looked far before: 

Blind love unmixed with forethought led him; her, 

The thing that centered in the moment's need, 

Hers or her child's. 

Phiral took the hill road, 
Then turned aside and came to Barvan's gate, 
Beside an inland lake, weary at dawn of day; 
But all unresting till his errand's end, 
Right forth he set with what he came to seek, 
Wrapped in a silken scrip, embroidered thick 
With mystic dragons and a golden crest. 



5i 



As It Befell Now Barvan nursed hate against the king, sought 
A road to slay him by bare treachery; 
For he had failed in arms in open field 
Thrice, yea, four times failed, in even battle-line; 
But guileful still in low subjection lived. 
Apples he gave, ruddy, and gold, and ripe, 
And in their heart a subtle powder, sweet 
And deadly. 

Then when Phiral, from the crest 
Of Lorm's last highland, saw the waning day 
Glittering on the king's blue towers afar, 
He fell a-thirst, seemed to himself all one 
As dead, but resting chewed dry wayside leaves, 
Took courage, and fared on across the plain 
Through miles of trampled dust. Far spent, at last, 
From thirst and weariness, and weakness, heart 
Gave way and down he sank upon a knoll 
Panting, « ' Why should one die with food in scrip ? ' ' 
He took and ate of Barvan' s gift, and rose 
With thought of home and wife and little Svane; 
He rose and ran, and as the sun went down, 
Fell at the city's gate, crying, " The king! 
Save him!" with a great bitter cry and died. 
And seeing the king's crest upon the scrip, 
Though hardly they could take the silken bag 
From out his grasp, men bore it quickly on 
To the king's palace, to the ailing king, 
And he died, slain by that subtlety, — slain 
By that chance along with Phiral. Nor court 
Nor people knew. 

Then reigned another prince, 
And years went by, and Phiral' s son was grown 
A mighty man at arms; the king took joy 
Of him and set him over all his hosts, 



52 



Made him friend, close comrade of his repose, As It Befell 

Counselor to his throne through evil days. 

It chanced there was a knave in prince's garb 

About the king, — keeper of his own thoughts, 

Silent and cold-eyed, observant of ear, 

Stealthy of spirit, one that plotted much 

In crass day-dreams his own aggrandizement. 

But ever Svane kept to the simple ways 

That never hinder men from living long and well, 

And dwelt untrammeled in his own first home 

Where still his mother, mistress of his heart, 

Lived and loved for him — how else ? — in the round 

Of her small world, each day as it arose. 

And Svane wrought the king's will with sword and 

word, 
And all the people were at peace to till 
Their lands and tend their flocks, or make their mart 
Among themselves, by land and sea. But Doure, 
The knave-prince, grumbled in his palace hall, 
Until his wife, a princess wise and gentle, said, 
" Patience, my lord; the king will give you place yet 
To do the thing you would. His armies lie 
Expectant in their tents." But Doure' s one thought 
Was "Svane, Svane! Ay, 'tis ever Svane," and 

sulked 
And crept away to think. 

A young moon's arc 
Hung low among the yellow stars, — between 
The purple and the gray that meet the blue, 
Banding, all three, the early evening sky, — 
And lighted Svane forth and back, among 
His garden plots and arbored paths and glades 
Of scented shrubs, and crossed his troubled thought 
With brief cessation. 

53 



As It Befell " Time to tell the king ? 

Ay, now, for Doure is even now — But if 
The king knew, yea, to-night, Doure' s head would fall, 
And that poor princess and the child, his son: 
My mother pleads for them: that Doure 
May fail, that I may ward his treason, save 
Him alive, and never tell the king all; 
And take the traitor in my hands and hold 
His waywardness in check and make him serve 
His duty to the king, — and keep the three alive. 
< The wife,' my mother weeps, * the little child!' 
Yet when had not the innocent to suffer 
If those they love are guilty ? Doure must die! " 

But Svane's mother, all awake, rose and met 
Her son, took him full-armored as he stood, 
And set him by her bed and made him see 
And feel her way: less haste might save the two 
That else would die with Doure. So Svane's mind 

turned, 
Saw not what might befall between and failed 
Of natural tenor. So he slept, all be, 
In armor, by his door, and not at peace. 

Now whether Doure' s envy, his traitor mind 
At work betimes, despite his craven heart, 
Drove honest sleep away, the tale tells not, 
But something led him forth to walk at deep 
Of night between the dawn and that dim hour 
When palest stars withdraw and leave the brightest 
Waning, a cold wind blows, and sleep is heaviest. 
Slinking by Svane's garden, even to his door, 
There he found the sleeping warrior, — there 
Wounded him to death and left him bare words 
Enough to warn the king. And so Svane died; 
All was ended for Phiral and his line. 

54 



Whether, then, as some think it ought to seem, As It Befell 

By reason of the people's wrath, Doure came 

To death, or fled beyond the western plain 

To Barvan's high-walled city, certain word 

Has no man had. But the knave prince's child 

In later years fell heir to Barvan's crown, 

And Lorm's empire, — scrolls say not how, — 

Except as son of that wise princess, wife 

To Doure, whose record ends where it begins 

That she was wise and gentle all her days. 



55 



NEPHRAN AND THE LAW 



T 



HUS Nephran made discourse unto himself, 
Walking at eve beneath the sycamores: 



" Alarion says that Nature — God — fails not 
To punish evil-doing. Ay, a priest, 
Alarion speaks as a priest should speak, I grant. 
Were I a priest, this thing upon my tongue 
Should be and help to get my bread as well. 
But I am young and strong and free — my own, 
I am — and no man hinders. Would I, think, 
Endure that freedom should be hedged about 
For harping like to this ? So, look at me! 
A score of times have I done thus, — and thus, — 
That he denominates wrong, — and look at me ! 
Who is so strong? Who goes so far and never 
Tires ? Or who sleeps as I ? And I will think 
Alarion is a fool, or Nature is, or — " 



Nephran bows low above his only child, 

The last of seven; agonizing seeks 

To save the feeble flame of life alive; 

He chafes the little hand, the poor lame feet; 

He lifts the helpless head, and holds the cup 

To lips that smile, but, drinking not, try, 

To please the face that hangs above, 

As the blue eyes widely open, glistening, 

Seem to say. 



56 



THE VISION OF CYRLEON 

CYRLEON walked a mountain path at noon 
And met an angel by a flower-lit bush, 
Azalean white and gold. Strength of limb 
And learning's pride had lifted up his head 
To think no fear; the heavenly vision fronting him 
As might a man abashed him not. 

One word 
The angel spoke, or seemed to speak, and lo, 
Cyrleon saw the shine of cities far, 
And domes and towers, and lands he knew not; saw 
The ships that went, the caravans that came, 
And heard the noises of the nations; heard 
The wail of one bewildered child, forlorn 
In a forest; the flutter of a leaf 
Upon a nameless grave; a cricket's song 
Down in the plain below in his own field. 
With hand and smile he bade Cyrleon look 
Across the daylight sky, the noonday blue, 
And lo, the sweep of worlds innumerable, 
The secrets of their paths, their destiny, 
Their doom. 

The seraph touched a glowing flower, 
Azalean white and gold, and straightway came 
The hidden craft of wood and field before 
Cyrleon' s eyes; he saw the shade-born fern 
Erect her crozier, the moss unwind her threads, 
The leaf grow up, the rootlet seek the dark; 
He followed to its cell the silken mouse 
With bead-round eyes and stripes of brown; he marked 
The woodbird's weaving skill, the grouse's wiles 
When she would hide her leaf-brown brood 
To save herself and them; he counted o'er 
The convolutions of the snail's thin house; 



57 



The Vision Nature gave up beloved secrets, all 

of Cyrleon At glance, to him. 

But proud, undaunted still, 
Cyrleon stood and eyed the angel's guise, 
The helmet white, the shield of white, the vesture 
Like the light of dawn; slow gazed and wondered: 
Perceived not yet that heavenly messenger 
On heavenly errand fared; far less perceived 
That errand was to him. 

So, up and down 
Staring, he marked a gleaming chain that held 
Beneath the white-sheathed sword a casket white 
And wondrous, such as mortal thought conceives 
Nor makes not. Around it rayed light like flame 
Of midnight stars. Cyrleon saw, amazed, 
Impelled, and knew. 

The angel spake no word, 
But looked with wistful eyes upon the man. 
" Great angel, I have read the flower, the sky, — 
Have read the world before me at thy will 
Constrained, yet this is naught if thou withhold 
To show me all." 

The angel spake not yet; 
Stooping he plucked away from clinging earth 
A pebble, granite black and white. " Read this, 
Then read thy heart," his look, his gesture said. 

Cyrleon gazed and paled but nearer stepped, 
With flaming eyes. " Show me the casket, — show 
" Nay, if I show, never again canst thou 
Rejoice in thy great knowledge. If I show, 
Thy pride will die, and thou upon thyself 
Shalt look remorsefully, as man sees not 
Nor yet has seen himself. Choose and abide. 



58 



If I show not, thy pride will live until the end; The Vision 

Thine eyes will be withholden not to see; of Cyrleon 

Thy thought shall never speak what thou hast been 
To thy sad heart, and all thy life shall go 
As it has gone, treading its rough-shod way 
Across what thou dost call thyself, thy soul. 

Cyrleon, trembling, pale, with outstretched hand, 
Strode forward. *< Lo, I choose; now show! " 

'< Abide 
And learn. It is thy destiny. Thy doom 
Were not to learn, and worse; therefore, I came." 
Pitiful, the angel gazed into his eyes, 
Yet stern his face, his form, then quickly laid 
The opened casket in the impassioned hand: 

What seemed a human heart lay beating there 

O strange illusion, dreadful semblance ! Could it be ? 
Cyrleon' s heart of hearts, his life of life. 
Wounded it was, until no spot for wounds 
Had space thereon. Forlorn and bruised it was, 
And other marks of dealing furrowed it more deep, 
Nameless and wordless, the deepest and the worst; 
Cyrleon' s quickened soul knew how and why, 
With sudden revelation striking sharp 
Athwart his ignorance and pride of mind and self, 
That was, — O piteous thought! —no higher self 
In that which made him man, not woman, born 
Than that dull clown's who ploughed his field of corn, 
There in the vale below. 

" Great angel of my God," 
He cried, down falling on his face to earth, 

" Myself I did not know, — that self the beast has, 

Except as thinking what it would must rule, 

As being Nature's gospel, therefore right; 



59 



The Vision Excepting as the world's way taught, and self, 
of Cyrleon Complacent, followed on unthinking. Yet, at worst, 
I numbed my thought. I would not see, not know. 
O why, if arrogant I thought I knew, 
Was light withheld ? And why silent they 
To whom vocation was to speak, give light ? 
That friend, from his high vantage ground of love? 
That priest ? Sanction most they had. Could it be 
That they, even they, unto themselves the truth 
Obscured ? Where was the light my father had ? 
Why went my mother to her grave and made 
No sign to me ? The soul has highest right 
To knowledge of its dwelling-place. O why — " 

" Hast thou been blind to all that lies around ? 

Wherefore has that proud mind of thine not wrought 

Out wisdom for thyself and thine, as for 

The creatures dumb that serve thy land and thee? 

How couldst thou guide for good to thee and thine 

Thy field-beasts' lives and bring to better height 

Their welfare so, by ever taking thought, 

Yet miss the thought that law of life is one 

In beast and man ? In what mean cavern lurks 

Thy soul ? On what low levels battens all 

Thy thought of life? Look up, and forth, and know; 

Look in and verify. Live where the Lord 

That made thee set thee lines to find the highest good; 

And know forever that if thou wouldst love 

And fitly live, thou in a Siege Perilous 

Must ever sit, ever lose thyself 

To find thyself. Know this, then thou shalt know.'* 



60 



Then ceased the voice; the vision faded, passed, The Vision 

Ere yet Cyrleon' s heart could make its cry of Cyrleon 

Or give him strength to lift his fallen face. 
" Angel," he cried in agony, " O come 
To me again! Say if the wounds will heal." 

No voice came back; from spaces blue and bright 

Above the mountain, slow winds breathed and fanned 

The white azalea flowering to its fall. 

And all was still upon the mountain-side 

Till set of sun, except Cyrleon' s thought 

That moved through rounds of grief, through gyres 

Of shame and wrath alternate, comforting 

In naught. But at early star-time a strength 

Returned to take him home to Ara there. 

• 
So fell he at her knees abashed, and weak, 
And wordless, till his grief had spent itself. 
Then all his tale he told, her tender hand 
Upon his head, comforting, and her tears 
Falling, falling. After, she pondered much 
This vision of Sir Galahad, the knight 
Blameless of Arthur's Table Round of old. 



61 



IN THE GARDEN 

ONCE I lay dozing on a summer day 
Beneath an oak around whose shadows swept 
The garden paths my neighbor owns for me, 
A " Phaedo " fallen from my drowsy hand, 
And lying open on the clipped cool grass. 
From daughters of his house, two fairy girls 
Whose infant daring makes their ways a joy 
To childless men like me, I heard, — or dreamed 
I heard, — much cunning wisdom there in this : 

"Now, Am'ranth, look! This is a golden dish — " 

(She showed an acorn's empty grizzled cup) — 

" Like that we read of in the book at home 

About the king's great dinner in the hall; 

And I will bring us honey from the rose, 

The red rose by the hedge, — that is the best, — 

A golden dish for you, and one for me." 

And then the talking fairy tiptoe stood 

To spill its dewdrops in her acorn-cup. 

Thus led to fairy-land, spoke in its lore 

The other little maid and turned and laughed: 

"And I will get the bread, white bread and sweet, 

Upon some pretty plates for you and me." 

(Petals white, I saw, of roses, laid in heaps 

On round nasturtium leaves of tender green. ) 

" This book," — the honey damsel thus went on, — 
" 'T is not a pretty book, he will not care; 
This book will make a table wide enough." 
And here she spread her fairy meal of bread, 
And set her bowls of honey on the words, — 



62 



His very words, O Plato, — his who drank In the 

The hemlock! But on I drowsed to hear Garden 

The feast proceed, half-minded, too, to join; 
Yet, fearing I might break the lovely spell 
And turn their honey back to dew, I slept 
With eyelids circumspect. 

" That hollyhock 
Shall be the tall man with the sword that stands 
Behind the king; I am the king, Am'ranth, 
And you may be the queen." 

" You have no crown, 
Ellice; how can you be a king at all?" 

" Well, I can make one of this white bell- vine, 
And here is one for you; now let us eat." 
But lo, the wind had spilt their honey on my book, 
And their ambrosial bread about the grass. 

And so they gayly laughed and said, " Let's play 
Some other thing," and ran away. And now 
I hear their laughter, sweeter than the brook 
That echoes with it from the garden trees. 



63 



GRATIAN BY THE FOUNTAIN 

<< \/EA, I am that Gratian; and I stood by 

1 And saw, as all the cohort, there among 
The olive trees, where he, the Man, — they said 
He was a Galilean, — came fearless forth. 
And I fell prostrate, face to ground — ' From awe ? ' 
I know not, yet I know I could not choose, — 
They could not choose. My brother was the chief; 
He says the Man was else a wizard, or a god, 
For he, my brother, fell, the strongest man 
In Caesar's guard. A Jew there was that stood 
With us, and nearest me, there in the press; — 
Twas he that led us to the place. I heard 
Him curse and felt his breath across my cheek 
And drew away the hand his mantle touched. 
Next day, I saw a withered tree with leaves 
Heart-shaped that hung like clots of blood; they said 
That black-browed man of wrath hung dead upon it 
Before the dreadful hour which put the sun out 
And covered all the world with darkness chilly 
As the grave's mould and terrible as death. 
I know not, but I saw its leaves all dead 
That were before so tender with the glow of spring. 

" 'That darkness was ?' Ay, so, that darkness was. 

(Sit still, thou restless child beside the fount. 

Crowd not my feet, young Varus, into shade; 

I like the sunshine better now than thou 

Canst like the wrestling games at school at play, 

Or sight of lithe long tigers in the dens 

Along the circus walls. — Run, Lelia dear, 

And bring me figs from that low-branching tree 

Thou knowest I love, — the yellow, not the blue, — 



64 



And hasten ere I tell the tale of wolves Gratian by 

That dwell among Carrara's hills.) the Fountain 

' Didst see 
Him near ?' Ay, so; it fell to me that day 
To stand and watch; and with the rabble crowd 
Of raging Jews I saw that Man who spoke 
No single word, but looked — he looked a god 
That had no fear of men! And yet as one 
Who could have wept for men. They buried him 
When he was dead. — Nay, ask me not, — dead, dead, 
He was, I say; I saw them take him down. 
Shaken with the rocking earth was all around, 
There in the dark when he gave up his breath 
And died. And I was one who watched at night 
Beside his tomb. O, what I saw and heard — 
Let me tell this: 

I know not if the gods 
We serve in Rome be gods; them have I seen 
In no time of my life; when I have called 
At sorest need, none seemed to answer; thrice 
In battle was I hurt, as 'twere to death; 
And once by robbers was I set upon 
In arms with two who watched a road with me. 
Left for dead we were, all three; Varus breathed 
Enough to say, *Live, Gratian; kill with my spear 
That Captain of the thieves; 'tis Barrabas; he 
That slew my father; 'tis my father's spear.' 
He died, but Sextus never spoke; all three 
Were soldiers of the guard; they two were dead, 
And I lay fever-smitten with my wounds 
A month ere I could speak to tell our tale. 
Then in that city times of tumult rose, 
And when I walked the streets again, a storm 
Of trouble swept Judea's world; but Rome 



65 



Gratian by Was mistress; Rome was power by shore and sea. 

the Fountain But everywhere the Jews were many minds, 
Mostly evil toward our gods; unagreed 
As touching theirs, and swayed among themselves, 
Torn by factions, bitter even to death 
And prison walls. 

The Man whose tale you seek? 
Him I knew at Nazareth; he made a chest for me 
Of cedar wood, — a boy, there, in the shop 
Upon a certain narrow street that crept 
Thus, and thus, toward the hills as 'twere the way 
The shepherds take. Some said the Boy grew up 
A trifling man that went about among 
The country places idly babbling words 
Of strange import to gaping crowds, — strange words 
Of what he most averred he was; some said 
He cured the sick, ay, raised the dead. I met 
One man who showed both arms and hands as whole 
As yours, — a common man I once had known 
With withered, dead right arm; but he was scorned 
By his own people if he said 't was so. 
Ah, well, 'tis hard to know the truth, I find, 
Even when you see and hear; but none shall wrest 
From me these things I know, because I saw 
With open eye. What I do know, I know. 
And so men say of me, — * Ay, Gratian knows 
What Gratian says he knows.' Well, then, believe, — 
You may believe, — these other marvels that I tell: 

"Yes, when he died upon the cross, the sun 
Was darkened and the earth trembled; some say 
That greater wonders were, for from their graves 
The dead came forth and walked the streets and praised 
The living God. 'Twas dark, the earth did shake; 
These things I felt; but those I know not of. 



66 



Aulus, my centurion, was afraid; he cried, Gratian by 

* This was, this was, the son of God!' We watched the Fountain 

Together at the tomb; we saw the stone rolled back, 

But who came forth, or what, we saw not, — no, — 

For we were blinded, thrown to earth by light, — 

A blaze of wondrous light, — and terrors shook 

Our hearts till we were near to death; for hours 

We spoke no word, — were dumb as are the dead. 

There was a man, a little hawk-faced man 

With piercing eyes, who held a thumb-pinched coin 

Beneath the face of Him they killed, and cried, 

' To Caesar, thou hast said ! So shall it be, 

Thou blasphemer.' And there was one who mocked 

With bitter laugh, — O, none showed pity, — none! 

But most I thought, — and still that thought will come 

At night when I am waked by dream of Him, — 

He was a god, and I to Him beholden am; 

And glad the feeling is, for surely, then, 

If there be gods have I seen one; and life 

Must still go on wherever He may be. 

Ay, so I will believe, I will believe." 



67 



THE ROMANCE OF A CLOD 

" T SEND you here," — with his own hand he 

1 wrote, — 

" From this far land wherein I journey with my 

knights, 
A golden gift. Care for it, I pray you, Sweet, 
With that same love you wait my coming hence." 

Then to her inmost secret room the Queen 

Rose-red with joy, yet stately, as a queen 

Befitted, went that none might see her heart; 

Unlaced the silken wrap and on the seal 

Let fond eyes rest, ere she the gift would see, 

The open box of jeweled gold; and lo, 

A lump of earth, a dry, unyielding clod, 

And nothing more! A far-brought gift, a king's 

Unto his queen ! A clod of earth — a queen ! 

Pale grew the queen, and reddening wrathfully 
She wept, sweeping aside her falling hair 
That dared its gold against her girdle's gold 
At lowest length let down. 

" Some evil tongue 
Hath slandered me. And now he loves me not; 
Alas, what must I do ? O lover — king, 
My heart is true to you, — is true to you." 
Her tears fell fast upon the hateful clod, 
That yet was dear that he had sent it, 
Though, indeed, in hate. 

With face tear-dimmed, 
She pondered long, and then in twilight's dusk, 
A sad white shadow, sought the garden dear, 
That one fair spot of his and hers where none 
Dare come, and near a willow-pool she stooped 



68 



And hid it in the earth with tears; with tears The Romance 

That might have crumbled kinder clods, not this. of a Clod 

And thus, the insult hid, she lived, nor spoke 
To any of her grief, till he should come. 

And on a day of wide blue sky, and air 
Like inspiration, came the herald of the king, 
The king himself, in cloth of gold and pearl, 
And blue; a crowd of noble knights on steeds 
With white manes lifting, falling like the mists 
Of some white morning. 

Down impetuous, 
Down sprang the king and clasped the queen jnor 

marked 
Her stately coldness, but with joy led on 
And said, " My love, my only love, now show 
How thou hast kept my gift. By this," he laughed, 
In over-joy, "it must be like my queen, 
In gold and white, yet not so sweet and fair. 
It shall my omen be, of love, of life with thee, 
And peace with all the world." 

Tumult of soul 
The queen's faint heart made mute, while she led on, 
She scarce knew how or why, to where it lay, 
The hateful gift that made her grief. Behold 
A regal flower of gold and white, of white and gold 
With perfumed presence wide, above the grave 
Her hands had made in wrath of tears and shame! 

"O love," she cried, "I did not understand ! 
I did not understand ! And I have wronged 
In thought, — O, not in heart, my king, for still 
I loved you." On his breast she wept the tale 
Until he lifted up her sorrowing face 
Into the tender light of his own smile. 



69 



The Romance Along by marble shapes at dusk they passed 
of a Clod Through garden lanes that led them to the court 

Where brave and beautiful awaited them 
With joyful homage. 

But nor marble shape 
Nor noble knight nor dame could touch the heart 
With beauty like to theirs. A lily lay 
In white and gold upon her breast; her hand 
Upon his arm; a glory as of light 
From some supernal goodness in his face 
Shone full before them all. 

And yet the queen 
At soul of all her joy bore one sad thought, 
"I did not understand! Ah, woe is mine 
That I must say, ' I did not understand ' 
When love was speaking." 



70 



A PARABLE OF APPLES 

A YOUTH named Jair, wise and strong and proud, 
Yet full of cynic judgment of his kind, 
With scrip and geologic hammer, climbed 
Into the mountains on a summer day, 
Away from college and the busy town. 
With scrap of eocene, and speckled boulder, gray, 
And garnet-veined, with shell and geode round, 
He felt his shoulder weighed, and so began 
To heed the tale more recent, — not less true, — 
Of hunger, heat, and thirst, himself exampled. 

Then opportune he came upon a farm 
Encircled in a gracious mountain vale 
By field, and wood, and stream, and orchard fair: 
One tree, with golden apples, one side blushed, 
Seductive boughs hung out above his head; 
He plucked and cut the fairest; black and dead 
It opened on his sight. A second — Ah ! 
His shuddering hand a hateful worm had cleft; 
A third, dead ripe and hollow, filled with ants. 
No more he plucked; impatient, sore, he turned 
And swiftly sought the farmhouse on the hill. 

The farmer resting in his noonday shade 

A cordial welcome gave and smiling spoke 

In fond and boasting words of crop in field, 

On hills, and garden; of orchard, — " Betty, wife, 

The dish of Blushes from the porch. — Now, look," 

He said, " the very best that grows on tree; 

Fill up your pockets, lad; they 're juicy, fine, 

For days like this. Nor mildew marks this tree, 

Nor worm, nor spot. 



7i 



A Parable Why, now, I wonder, boy, 

of Apples You did not help yourself along the road; 
I should not grudge." 

He smiled, " Your boasted tree, 
To me inhospitable, gave three times 
But worthless fruit, and so I judged the whole." 

"Why, listen! Betty! Hear'st thou that?" he 

laughed; 
" He says our famous tree deceived him thrice, 
And so he would no more of it, no more, 
Because just three were bad, — just three." Low 

laughed 
The farmer, fanning with his braided hat. 

" So have I judged my fellow-men," mused Jair, 
Along the mountain road. " So have I missed 
The essential mark and hit one lower with pains 
Not wasted had my arrow missed a star." 



72 



AN INVITATION 

THE MARRIED LOVERS TO A FRIEND 

COME, O friend of Both, and see our home! 
A cottage neighbored by a friendly brook 
That sings, or sings not, as we choose to hear, 
But winds its own sweet way among our trees, 
And, meditating, musical, wanders joyously 
Below into the open wood beyond, 
Alert and singing on through unknown ways 
To seek — but not to find! — another home 
As dear. 

We two, — O summer sweet and long! 
We two dwell there, whom oft the early stars 
Find walking through the flowery garden ways, 
Silent with joy, or gay with tranquil speech; 
Or yet they find us on the vine- woven porch 
Listening to the streamlet drop into the wood 
To wake the troops of echoes there asleep 
And chase their music to our ears. 

We two 
Beside the friendly stream live such a life 
And know what silent thoughts move each to joy 
When wakening orchards blossom up the hills, 
And sweeten all the May-time morning airs; 
When warmer glows of summer paint the skies; 
When apples drop, red-ripe, among the grass 
Through all the silence of the autumn nights; 
When, all leaf-strewn, our wood is gray and still, 
And faded is the grass beneath the snow; 
Thus our two lives together run love' s perfect way 

Enter our little home, O Friend of Both, 
Its dearness let us share to-day with you; 



73 



An Invitation And take into your thought of us its peace, 
Its humble harmony and beauty take, 
Its books, and flowers, and pictures, dear and few. 

Come touch this thing of music till it sings 
Of light that never fades away, and joy 
That grows far down among the roots of life. 
Or by this window sit and see how near 
We hearken Nature, who can come up close 
To overlook what life we live, day in, 
Day out, and praise, or chide, or smile. 

These grapes, 
Pale red, and lucent green, and purple-black, 
The hand of Rosamund hath intertwined 
With leaves for you; this perfect peach of gold 
Among the topmost boughs I sought for you; 
This branch of amber plums, the bloom on yet, 
All these are morning thoughts of you; her thoughts 
And mine, for you, O first of friends to us, 
Whose hand laid on our growing souls and hearts 
A shaping love and steadying sympathy; 
With infinite expenditure of faith 
That draws its hope from memories unnamed, 
Whose source lies deep among the years long gone, 
We know it now! you gave us this great gift — 
(Ofttimes misread, or half-conceived, half-heeded,) — 
Your inner life, the closed-up volume of your heart. 

Nay, we have seen and known, when we half talked 

Within the soul's most inner shrine, how you 

Secretly did lift us toward a star 

Long risen to your horizon, but yet, not yet 

To ours; and, thinly veiled, your life's ideal 

Still walks beside you guiding us; — and ours 

That shall be, so are yours, and blessed forevermore. 



74 



ULAN, THE STONE-CUTTER 

In silence rose 
The King, and sought his garden cool, 
And walked apart, and murmured low, 
"Be merciful to me, a fool."— E. R. Sill. 



o 



F men much praise 
Wrought serf Ulan all his days, 
Much marble praise; 



Year after year 
Cut and carved without a peer 
To love or fear. 

At set of sun 
On a day full well begun 
His work was done. 

Of Ulan, then, 
Words were writ, a scanty ten, 
By hurried pen: 

"Serf Ulan's dead; 
Olar's wisest hand, and head, 
And heart," they said. 

Then Olar came, 
Olar, prince and lord of fame 
And spoke his name: 

" This Ulan, chiefs, 
Dwelt in strange and bright beliefs 
And had great griefs. 

ft From griefs he rose, 
Just as, when a tempest blows, 
And ruin sows, 



75 



Ulan, the *< Some faint sweet flower 

Stone-Cutter Opens in the calm first hour 

After its power. 

" In what he sang 
Praise of some far splendor rang, 
To hammer's clang. 

" My windows know 
Gardened Chiarno's quarries low 
And current slow; 

" From dawn to dark 
I can count the strokes and mark 
The quick flint spark 

" When hammers fall; 
Toils there many and many a thrall; 
I know them all. 

" Pavilioned here 
Crowds of noble chiefs and dear 
Bear shield and spear; 

" And, yea, we know 
Prince and knight less noble show 
Than Ulan low; 

f « For, many a year, 
You and I had wasted here 
In sloth's career; 

«« You mind it well, 

Time my jester's cap and bell 

Had lost their spell; 



76 



" How all his mirth Ulan, the 

Dead and ghastly was, and earth Stone- Cutter 

Seemed nothing worth; 

" How, many an hour, 
Sulked I in my chambered tower 
Distraught and sour; 

" How in this plight, 

One day, Ulan's stroke of might 

Flashed back the light. 

" His blow on stone 
Greater was than he had known; 
It struck a throne. 

" Rejoiced, I cried, — 
Hope of pleasure yet untried 
Then first descried, — 

" ' Now send and bring 
Ulan; he shall know the thing 
To please a king.' 

" Then under stress 

Ulan stood in motley dress, — 

A man, no less ! — 

" I, on the throne, — 
Fool, I was to all minds known 
Except my own, — 

" When Ulan's eyes 
There met mine with sad surprise 
And half surmise, 



77 



Ulan, the " And bravely plead, 

Stone-Cutter * Make for us a prayer,' I said; 

He bowed his head. 

— * Ay, it is meet 
Olar weeps now at thy feet, 
Thou soul most sweet! ' 

" Convicted fool, 
Shamed, I found a bitter school 
In garden cool. 

«' You know how light 
Bursting from that prayer of might 
Did clear our sight. 

" Our sin confessed, 
Life, it taught, was not a jest; 
Mere joy its quest; 

" We saw life, then, 
Forward move before our ken, 
As from a den, 

" To some wide ground 
Rimmed with broadening blue and bound 
By fair hills 'round. 

" And prince and man 
Learned then how to search and scan 
His life's whole plan. 

"Thereby we earned 

Wisdom, till the world discerned 

What we had learned. 



78 



"By me led on, Ulan, the 

Foes you conquered, peace you won, Stone- Cutter 

And wars were done. 

" And praises free, 
Knights and men, for this should be, — 
But not to me. 

" These good new ways 
Ulan wrought in our bad days; 
To him the praise." 



Then Ulan's head 
Low they laid, and chanting said, 
With solemn tread, 

And sad and slow, 
' f Prince and lord from serf we know, 
When trumpets blow; 

" The man-king true, 
Blindly missed we never knew; 
Ah, late to rue! 

"This is his hour! 
Lay him where the great king's tower 
Shadows the flower 

" Of race and earth. 
Sing, that deathless love and worth 
Through him had birth 

" In our dull souls; 

Sing, that while Chiarno rolls 

By deeps and shoals 



79 



Ulan, the " To reach the strand, 

Stone-Cutter Seek we still to understand 

His one command: 

** ' O never stay! 
Move ye forward. There's the way 
That leads to day.' 

" Here lay him low. 

Chant no more; the river's flow 

Still speaks our woe." 



80 



BT WOOD AND FIELD 



PRELUDE: WOOL-GATHERING 

ONE lock of wool from off this thorn, and one 
From yonder shag of rock; a filmy third 
From this dry tuft of thyme, and on and on 
Up hill, down trail, in woodland vale and field, 
I gather for my fancy's web and weave 
As chance and time decree when day's delight 
Is still enough for joyful living; still 
Enough for comfort for the stress of days to come. 



81 



AMONG THE OAKS 



BLUE are the skies; the warm wind trails 
No cloud across the land, 
Save yonder straggling stream of birds, 
The blackbirds' nomad band. 

II 

The distant wheelman flashing sweeps 

Along the hillside road, 
Shimmers across the sight, is gone — 

A guess, an episode. 

Ill 

The lark that loves these somber fields 

Sings yet with summer trills, 
Although November's sun slants low 

On Palo Alto hills. 

IV 

These tufted groups of oak invite; 

The field's gray monotone 
Offers repose of thought; 'tis good 

This hour to be alone. 



O sov' reign oaks, with courage clear, 
You go from strength to more! 

Perennial praises spring from you; 
You live and you adore. 



82 



VI Among 

Adoring still, your outward reach 

Excels your upward gain. 
How count you growth ? Is height not sweet ? 



Is compensation pain? 



VII 

Twilights of purple, rose, and blue, 
Soft dusks of green and gray, 

Rest in your shadows, make of you 
Fit place wherein to pray. 

VIII 

So tabernacled in this veil, 

The thought is cleared from dust; 
Pavilioned so, the soul renews 

Her ancient faith and trust. 

-IX 

For do behold the light stream in, 
Through netted arch and dome! 

It is the light that ever lives, — 

" It comes from God, our home." 



The light that sun, nor moon, nor star, 

Hath part nor pareel in — 
Forevermore its lamp is lit, 

Forevermore hath been. 



83 



Among XI 

the Oaks 



Howbeit Nature hints of it 

In every flower that blows, 
Love we her works for something less 

Than that which through them flows- 

XII 

Radiance from the Soul of all 
The Light that Was and Is, 

That yet doth penetrate the chinks 
And claim this clay for His? 

XIII 

Though worn-out creeds of yesterday, 
Though sins of self and gain, 

Thrust in opaquely, blur and blot, 
But cannot wholly stain, 

XIV 

Across the hurry of our souls, 
Through thriftless toil and haste, 

There slants a beam we do not see, 
To save our years from waste. 

XV 

O wherefore pine as knowing not ? 

And wherefore live so scant ? 
Why art thou alien, who wast born 

Thine own hierophant ? 



XVI Among 

the Oaks 



Before the altars of His praise, 
Go forth, my soul, to lead 

Processional and anthem choir, 
Let Nature not precede. 



XVII 

Dear are the chidings of the oak, 
And dear the field's reproof; 

Nor wise are we nor wise have been 
To hold our lives aloof. 

XVIII 

But still the world will claim its own, 

And life go on amiss; 
We fain would have the good of that 

And yet hold fast to this. 



85 



WITH THE FIELD-LARK 

HEARKEN, 
Dear lark, 
And tell me true, 
I have reasons for singing, 
But what have you? 

'* O the prospect blue, 
The ground and the grass, 
And freedom to roam there, 
And a dear little home there, 
When the night-winds come to pass. 
What better, dear mortal, have you?" 

Ah, bird 

Of the relevant word, 

What thou hast, and I think I own, 

Let us not measure together. 

The same sky and the same weather 

Fall to my share of the world; 

And all that is or shall be sown 

Of field-flower or wood-flower or vine, 

All that's furled 

In seed of oak or pine, 

Are as much yours as mine, 

Are as much mine as yours; 

Only, there are scores and scores 

Of closed or open doors: 

Many I enter thou canst not see, 

And thy palaces are not for me; 

But comrade to my thought thou art 

In the blessedest part, 

The joy of living, and faith 



86 



In what the book of Nature saith — With the 

That life will all seem good Field-Lark 

When the worst is forgot 

And the best understood; 

When we see that the blot 

On the page is only one 

Great shadow of self in the sun. 

The preaching is done, 

Little chorister; one little hymn, 

Now, ere I go through field-paths dim, 

Benedicite, the good night falls, 

Benedicite, thy mate calls, 

Benedicite. 



87 



IN THE FIELD IN FEBRUARY 

CREEP, little mouse, clear out in the sun, 
Unafraid, to yon moss-tuft; stop to nibble and run 
Over knot-grass, in and out, under sheaves 
Of gray weeds, among silky long leaves 
Of wild oats, faded white in the rain, — 
Stop to nibble in peace; make what gain 
Of the sunshine thou canst; so will I, 
Little friend, unaware as thou of the world; 
Unaware, just an hour, of all but the sky 
And the good sweet earth at my feet, 
Where the springtime and harvest are curled, 
Safe in the round of a seed thou mayst eat 
Even now as a morsel, yet diminish thy share 
In what is to come not one little meal, — 
So full has been the sowing, 
So great has been the knowing 
Of all that 's good and fair. 

There, where our springtime and harvest in keeping 
Lie, in the root of the flower, in the seed of the grass, 
In the hue of the ground and the moss of the rock, 
Thou, little velvet-foot, art over-prying, over-creeping; 
No fear hast thou that food will fail thee, 
No thought can come or dread assail thee, 
While this sunny promise of the spring 
Gives thee warmth for wandering. 
The sun himself constraint shall feel, 
The stars shall lend themselves for clock, 
The moon unbalance the world's whole sea 
When the frost sets forth with gnome-like^tread 
Boulder by boulder, block by block, 



To rend and shock In the Field 

Granite and shale to make our bread. in February 

Yet dare we boast out of our narrow wits 

That we are favorites 

Of law? Not while Nurse Nature sits 

At times and frowns on thee and me, — 

Not unaware, when all is said, — 

Indifferent, clifflike, though I be ground 

To dust, or thou be 'gulfed in serpent's maw, 

Or either inchmeal chopped to gain 

For some pert science one more note: 

" Something smaller and more nearly round 

The foramen, here, than in Peromyscus found ! ' ' 

Little comrade, housed to rest, 

I forbear to know thy runway, seek thy nest; 

So wend by and shut my eyes 

To the gentle enterprise 

That has found thee shelter here. 

Thanks for pleasure, friendship, peace 

And all that gave the thought release. 

Thou and I have lives that run 

Safely coursing with the sun; 

Thou and I may sleep or wake; 

Day of judgment shall not break 

Ere, recorded in our sphere, 

Each shall in his place appear, — 

Thou as safe as I, and I 

Safe, because nor Life, nor Death, 

Nor other creature God has made 

That lives a spirit, or draws breath, 

Shall molest or make afraid. 



8 9 



In the Field Now along the brown-gray plain 
in February Stripes of sunlight, streams of mist, 
Seem to waver, seem to float; 
Purple are the hills, an amethyst 
Black Mountain is, and the further ridges 
Woven into one by fog's fantastic bridges, 
Veil their redwoods, pass from sight; 
So foregather clouds and night. 



90 



IN PALO ALTO GARDEN 

BROAD leaf and narrow leaf, 
Banner-leaf and arrow-leaf 
Wheel in the sun and sprinkle 
Shadow and sun-spot, stem-streak and wrinkle, 
With gloom and with glow. 

Palm and banana, 

Sequoia and canna, 

Rustle and whisper and shake 

Sheafage and spear-point, and break 

Leafage and shadow, and make 

Mysterious word-hints that wake 

Memory and feeling, enticing the thought 

To a green world full of leaves, till 'tis caught 

By a trick of bud-bursting, or play 

Of a flowering spray 

Like that of a place and a time far away, 

With the old tale of springtime, 

Yet with language and rhythm and rime, 

Beautiful, strange, and new. 

Now the sun, a gold ship in the blue, 

Snaring the thought in his net, sweeps 

Out into spaces, off into deeps, 

Till the soul turns backward in terror and creeps 

Into old limits, looks for solace to earth: 

To something familiar of form and hue, — 

To star-eyed verbena that crawls, 

Like a child with head up in its mirth, 

Toward the bright spot of pansies; — to the roseleaf 

that falls 
To the ground, resting surety enough that the world 



9i 



In Palo Alto Is tethered somehow, and cannot be lost 
Garden In the darkness of spaces, nor hurled, 

Ere the day of its doom, 
Out of the Hand that holds it, nor tossed 
Into the furnace where dead worlds glow 
Red hot, then turn to white ashes, and drift 
Across the wide heaven, a dust or a gloom 
That passes forgotten. 

Ho, little flower, 
Hast thou tethered me so ? — me, unaware? 
Bright-spirited, earthborn, lead me not such a race 
As the sun leads. Keep to thy place 
Predestined; keep to thy blossoming thrift; 
Be a gay spot on the brown of the mould, 
Be an odor, a ground-wreath, bless thine hour 
Content with thine own proper dower. 

Yonder beech, copper-leaved, symmetric, not overbold, 

But respecting its forbears among strangers, seems 

One kind of joy that Nature now knows 

In expressing serenity, strength, and repose; 

That linden, all a-honeyed, drones with bees 

From its skirts to its crown. Every gain it has planned 

By giving its thousands away out of hand, 

Till the hives overfill, — till the sweetness pervades 

All the lawn under-flowing this garden of trees. 

What wonder is this, now ? A dry stem of rose, 
Dead past all hope, yet bright with a bloom,— 
A chrysalis-miracle: wings and a spirit alive 
Out of silence, and sleep, and the tomb. 
Touch tenderly, shadow; rock softly, wind, 
Till the folded wings, all a-tremble, unclose, 
Spreading like petals of roses that strive 
From the twists of the bud to be free. 



92 



And I know Reason will say I have sinned In Palo Alto 

Against her, putting by what she thinks to be so, Garden 

Having measured and proved. But it is and shall be, 

That thought for assurance will go 

Beyond fact, escaping from doubt to the emblem still; 

From emblem to Prototype; there, then, 

How fixed are the feet, how secure is the way! 

So, O my soul, why glance with a chill 

At yon sepulcher, and why shadow the day 

With a question of When ? 

Sea-green and golden the evening sky glows 

In the west over purple-blue hills; 

Pale gray in the east, and a tint of rose 

That satisfies and fills 

All the wistful spaces of the heart, 

Late and low streams the sun 

Over low field and vineyard; late and low 

Sing the thrush and the wren; 

And once more ere it be dark, 

Once more sings the lark 

To his answering mate; one and one 

To the hedge the mottled quails run; 

And red and round above the bay 

The full moon, rising, ends the day. 

The gray road glimmers; yonder is my way. 



93 



PALO ALTO HILLS 

WHEN, some fair eve, in lands afar, 
I walk where fancy wills, 
And one shall say, " So beams that star 

On Palo Alto Hills," 
It needs must be the star will pale 

And seem less kindly near, 
Than if, through tears, the voice should fail 

To name a name so dear. 
For tranquil are the days to me 

And charmed from old-time ills, 
By windows facing field and tree 

And Palo Alto Hills; 
There cloud and shine such dreamland show 

Of purple and of mist, 
I sometimes think I almost know 

The look of amethyst, 
And chrysolite, and chrysoprase 

Of Heaven's foundation-sills; 
And find the peace of heavenly days 

On Palo Alto Hills. 



94 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



ELIAN GRAY 



YEARS of lone length, a joyless face,- 
Your picture, Elian Gray: 
But where you sit 'mid faded leaves 
Sat Clare one far-off May. 

II 

The flowers down showering on us both 
Made fair the checkered shade; 

She hoarded them in her two hands 
And sighed that they should fade. 

Ill 

Yet sighing smiled with lips content 

In beauty so complete, 
My heart, re-echoing what she felt, 

Lay mutely at her feet. 

IV 

She saw not that I loved her, — no; 

Her soul was slumbering yet; 
A child of nature, simple, true, — 

Would she my face forget? 



We parted, and her troubled eyes, 
Half-questioning, looked in mine, 

With something in her lingering glance 
I could not then divine. 



95 



Elian Gray VI 

They say she grew to fair estate 
Of noble womanhood: 

But strangely grave; and unaware 
That love was life's best good. 

VII 

They say she looked as one who waits 
A step that would not come. 

When other lips spoke praise of me 
She smiled, but hers were dumb. 

VIII 

Ah, wretched, that my stupid heart 

And inadvertent eye 
Relinquished all that love could give 

Through doubt's inconstancy! 

IX 

Doubt, not of her, but doubt of God, 
And feeble faith that He 

Designed for men much earthly joy, 
And, least of all, for me. 

X 

This is her grave; the ripe fruit falls 
Where blossoms fell before; 

This is her grave; here all paths end 
For me, forevermore. 



96 



OF A SONG AND A DREAM 

(an experiment in the refrain stanza) 

I HAD a vision at the dawn before the day began, 
Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 
And ever through it, bright and sweet, a lover's love- 
song ran, 
Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

I saw a poet wrapped in thought beneath low boughs 
of pine, 

Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 
And as he walked he wrote upon a tablet small and fine. 

Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

I spoke; he did not turn his head; he would not hear 
me speak; 
Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 
The wandering wind blew back his hair and flushed his 
youthful cheek. 
Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

His hyacinthine robes made murmurous foldings slow, 
Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

As if a statue stepped, yet undisturbed did go. 
Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

The woodland birds above him flew; the flowers 
bloomed around; 

Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 
Their joy was in his soul; he heard no other sound. 

Along my lady* s garden, linger, lovely stream. 



97 



Of a Song I paced beside him close; I looked on what he wrote; 
and a Dream Along my lady's garden, linger, lovely stream. 
O rare ! It was that poet of the perfect note ! 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

That great young bard who saw the elder world in light 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

And carved its gods and fanes in verse of marble bright. 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

" What said the tablets ? What oracular saw I ?" 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

— Alas, Mnemosyne, alas, hadst thou been by! — 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

The Sun-god's tale told out at last, Hyperion's woe, 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

From that long broken line, complete and whole did 
flow; 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

Gold hair "of short Numidian curl," a regal brow, — 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

And on and on the tale flowed on, beyond all memory 
now; 
Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 

For ere my dream-resolve could learn the wondrous 
rune, 

Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 
He hid it in his breast to hark that lover's tune; 

Along my lady' s garden, linger, lovely stream. 



93 



He smiled; and all the forest seemed with springtime Of a Song 

bright, and a Dream 

Then passed the dream and faded in the morning light. 
Along my lady's garden, linger, lovely stream. 

"How could I lose so great a boon ?" Nay, blame 

me not, — 
Though much the blame, — since this of all was unfor- 

got; 

A lover's love-song, — foolish rime, we say, — 
Had power to turn that clear Olympian soul away 
From thought's profoundest joy, — projection of the 

forms 
Of soul-created beauty, pastime pure that warms 
All nobler moods of man and lights the facts of common 

day 
With splendor drawn to earth by song's celestial way. 

But yes, 'tis true; such loss has scarce a recompense; 
Hyperion's tale! I, self from self, lack all defense. 



L.ofC. 



99 



SONG 

A ROBIN sat on a willow tree, 
Sing ivy; sing ivy. 
* ' O where is my mate, O where are my nestlings three ? ' ' 

Sing ivy; si?ig ivy. 
" The storm has beaten, the wind has chilled, 
My nest with snow and hail is filled. ' ' 
Sing ivy; sing ivy. 

A carline sat by her dead hearth-fire; 

Sing ivy; sing ivy. 
"O where is my mate, O where are my children three ? ' ' 

Sing ivy; sing ivy. 
" The waves came up on the stormy shore, 
And the boat returned, returned no more." 

Sing ivy; sing ivy. 



SONG 

WHEN YOU COME 

I WHISPER to the roses in my room 
They 'd best be sweetest now, and bloom 
Out full, if they would bloom to be 
All any roses can to me; 
Mere roses I shall never see 
When you come. 

Then I command them not to bloom 
In foolish waste to fill my room 
With beauty now. Dare they be 
Aught that any roses might to me 
Unless their beauty you may see 
When you come ? 

Love, though they wait, or though they bloom 
There yet shall live in my dim room 
One rose of loveliest hope to me; 
Its perfect flowering time shall be 
The moment I your face shall see, 
When you come. 



IOI 



THE LITTLE GRAY BIRD 

O LITTLE gray bird in the dell, 
All ashen gray and sweet and fine, 
Your looks have pleased me passing well,- 
Your taste in dress is just like mine, 

For Ellen's dress is ashen gray, 

And she is sweet and small and fine; 

But there resemblance must give way, 
For you are not, and she is, mine. 

I hear you sing; you do it well; 

I should have called your singing fine, 
But Ellen's songs can weave a spell 

That yours must lack, for she is mine. 

Yet could I snare you in my hand 
And so enslave your body fine — 

Blithe little bird, dost understand? 
I could not love what so was mine. 

Yet could I coax you with a word, 
To give to me your presence fine, 

I doubt myself and much, wee bird, 
If I could love what so were mine. 

Yet were you Ellen, tender, true, 
As you are you, and small and fine, 

My life, my love would turn to you 
As now to her, for she is mine. 



PERHAPS IF WE KNEW 

AN oak-tree sighed, " O Life, if I could sing 
As the pine-tree sings of the epic sea! 
But this mere voiceless murmuring — 
To men, what can it be ? " 

A wandering poet, passing by, 
Heard the lifting leaves a-sigh; 

Of subtly-scented air 

His soul became aware, 
And memory waked and saw through tears, 
The gentle joys of earlier years; 
Out of a full heart flowing, then, 
Came a comforting song to sorrowing men. 

And thou, because no lyric frees thy soul to men, 
In aeolian harping like the voice of pines, — 
Thou mournest ? Perhaps some word of thine, dropped 

when 
A weary spirit passes by, defines 
The path of joy and beauty through the wilderness 
And thee — he knows not whom — he turns to bless. 



103 



A FOSTER MOTHER'S THOUGHT 

MOTHER NATURE took a census, once, to see 
If on the earth there could a mother be 
Who loved her only child as much as she 
Loved Earth, her child, in her entirety, 
And, — joy to think! — she counted me. 

For, when she listened at my heart, she heard, — 
If prayer it was, or wish, or loving word, 
Or any daring hope that in it lived and stirred, — 
Some tender thought for him, the gentle youth, 
Who is to me a loving son in truth. 

And so she counted me, and never knew 

I had no vested right within the line she drew 

Round mothers who have title full and true; 

She counted me, and placed me in that radiant row 

Of mothers who her large way of loving know. 



104 



TO EACH OTHER 

WHAT would you have ? " 
" A Castle in Spain 
Built out of my brain, my love, 
Built out of my brain! 
Some potent grain 
To cure heart-pain, my love, 
To cure heart-pain — 
What would you have ? ' ' 

* ' What would I have ? 

That Castle in Spain, 

Built out of your brain, true love, 

Built our of your brain; 

For in Castles in Spain 

You would cure heart-pain, my love, 

I would cure heart-pain: 

Love would we have.'' 



105 



VERILY 



A YOUNG knight found a gem of truth 
Upon a fallow field, 
And set as safeguards his bright youth 
And his undinted shield. 

But men denied with spear and lance 

And shamed his truth to dust; 
With argument and circumstance 

Himself to death they thrust. 

"Then died that truth ? " No, no! It lives 

And grows a gracious tree; 
And ships that bear the fruit it gives 

Sail now on every sea. 

" The men who slew the young knight brave 
What fate, the while, have they ? ' ' 

They seek, for aye, beside his grave, 
The truth they tried to slay' 



106 



TO A. B. C. 



I THOUGHT I knew all womankind, 

1 The stately and the fair, 

The sweet, the wise, the love-inclined, 

The deft, the debonair; 
" But never yet is one," I said, 

" For whom grave Clotho spun 
A strand of life of all fair thread 

And never left out one." 

But then, you see, 

I did not know my A. B. C. 



TRIOLET 



SING low, thou bird of lingering note, 
She comes along the poplar lane; 
A white cloud 's in the sky afloat, 

(Sing low, thou bird of lingering note,) 
Above us both, yet less remote 

Than she from me, a soul profane. 
Sing low, thou bird of lingering note, 
She comes along the poplar lane. 



107 



THE FALL OF THE LEAF 

A CRE ATURE- D RAM A IN THREE ACTS 

PERSONS 

The Chipmunk, The Weasel, 

Cwink, the Neighbor Chipmunk, Two Doves, 

The Thing, A Hunter, with a gun, 

The Snake, A Child. 

Place — A wooded mountain-side in the Sierra. 
Time — Early autumn. 

Act I. Scene i. 

PLACE — A log hemmed in by a thicket. Time — Afternoon. 

Persons— The Chipmunk, The Thing, The Child, The Weasel, 
The Snake. 

The Chipmunk [at first running about the wood path, 
then stopping^ . 
There is a stir among the pine-tree tops, 
There is a creeping low of wind among the shrubs, 
A falling slow of here a yellow leaf and there 
A red one. I know not what it bodes to me, 
But I must make my home all safe and warm 
For what is coming. I must fill my stores. 
Here is a feather white of Lady Dove's; 
I like her most; 'twill help to make my bed; 
And here' s a strip of thin sweet bark, 
A lock of wool, a shag of moss, — 
I '11 tear you, scratch you, yellow thing, 
You feather of the sparrow-hawk I fear! 
Kst! Ooh! Ooh! That 's the track of the Thing! 
Run, run! O Terror! Am I hid enough 
Beneath this bunch of leaves? Let me look out, 
Still, — still as the earthworm! And never rustling 
In these dry oak-leaves. Ah, safe in my own cell, 
My rounded cell in the big log 
Among the berry-trees. The Thing can hear ? 
Let me not think! 



109 



The Fall of The Thing [snuffing about] . 

the Leaf Where went that legged atom with the stripes? 

I marvel that a beast so small should be so wise; 
Here by the log it went, — up that tree, — there! 
Is mat its beaded head, — its white-spot ears? 
This daylight pinches up my eyes to slits 
I cannot see through, so these saucy mites, 
These bush-tailed whiffets, find their homes 
And leave me cheated of the sweetest fat I know. 
That 's a white lichen-splotch, and I'll not climb. 
He went not such a way, I think, 
But in those rocks I scorn to turn aside 
He 's lying flat. May the snake get him! 

[Lies down on the log and stretches.] 
There 's somewhat strange and tall that walks this path 
And pulls the nuts down from the bushes here, 
And munches like that lightning-footed thing, — 
If I but dared to try its bones? — Hark! 
He comes now. 

[A child goes by, singing and bearing a bough 
of wild red plums.] 

Through the thicket screen of boughs 
See him go by on two flat feet, and if — 
There 's something rustles in the leaves or in 
The log. The fanged groundworm that I hate ! 

The Snake. 

I saw him creep in hither in a fume 
Of terror. I '11 coil me here where he must come 
Again, and take him for my dinner, — so. 
One streak of sun pours through the leaves straight down 
As I would choose it. These dead brown leaves 
And yellow blots of clay will hide me well. 
Am I so ugly? — 'or not, the Thing 
Fears me. 



The Chipmunk [in his cell in the log] . The Fall of 

Softly I '11 weave my winter bed a while; Me Leaf 

I cannot leave my home to-day for fear. 

I am so sick of fear! I '11 close this door 

And make a way through that small chink. 

There is the dove's feather, it shall go here 

Where my head lies; and this sweet-smelling moss, 

And the strip of silvery bark. Now one more cell 

I '11 make, and that shall be, then, three for sleep 

And one for store. 

[The Thing stretches on the log above the chip- 
munk's nest, licks his paws, and purrs.] 
Hark! Is 't thunder? O me! 

Something will hear my heart beat, — beat so! 

Still, — be still as the earthworm; — still as the snail. 

The Weasel [coming toward the end of the log] . 

Ha, ah! I 've found your runway, now at last, 
You of the saucy stripes and perked-up ears; 
I '11 get you now, — now, little fool in the log. 

The Snake [lifting its head] . 

That hateful stoat! He seeks the little beast 
That he may suck his blood. 

[The Weasel, unaware, creeps upon the snake.] 
Creep and ape me, will you? Take that, blood-sucker. 
[Strikes and recoils in his place. The Weasel 
creeps away and dies. The Thing, terrified 
by the rattle of the Snake, springs from the 
log and fees up the hill-side; as he runs, his 
foot loosens a stone which, rolling down, crushes 
the Snake and closes up the end of the log.] 



in 



The Fall of Act II. Scene i. 

the Leaf _, 

PERSONS — Two Doves. Same place; time, next day. 

The Two Doves \he preening his feathers on the log 
over the Chipmunk's nest; she swinging on an over- 
hanging oak-bough~\ . 

She. This was our oak-bough, 

Here was our nest; 
The leaves are estranged now, 

All is so changed now; 
We change with the rest. 
O Love, change comes and snow. 

Where, where can we go? 

He. Lovely and warm and low 
In the lowland air 
Lies a home I know, 

A dear home I know. 
Come fly with me there. 

She. I know not a tree 

In the valley low 

Whither to flee 
When nightwinds blow. 

Stay but a day, — 
Stay, stay, but a farewell day. 

He. Linger no more, love; 
The valley is fair. 

She. Here falls a red leaf, 
There one of gold; 

Here clings a dead leaf, 
There loses hold. 

Where are our friends, now? 

Everything ends now. 



112 



The little brown beasts The Fall of 

Have left their nut-feasts; the Leaf 

The hermit-thrush glooms 

In the thicket's dark rooms, 

And the wee lonely wren 

Just speaks to us, then 

Hides himself and his song 

Where the fir-roots throng 

Over the cliff's high edge. 

The sun finds the ferns 

Where their yellow light burns 

In the leaf-riven hedge, 

Like that flash of bright flame 

When the wood's blackened shame 

Came upon it in summer's low tide, 

And shriveled, and blasted, and killed 

Whatever was wingless, and filled 

All the world with burnt ruin wide. 

We have seen it and known; 

Ere our nestlings had flown — 

He. Think not of that sad time. 
Now many a glad time 
In the far fields of spring 

Is waiting for you. 
Come, sweet wife and true, 
Lift your heart, lift your wing, 
Cleave we together, seeking the blue 
Sky of the distant and new. 
[They fly.-] 



i '3 



The Fall of AcT ni ScENE u 

the Leaf 

PERSONS — The Chipmunk, Neighbor Cwink, The Thing, The Hunter. 
Time, next afternoon; same place. 

[ The Cbipmwik and Neighbor Cwink, runnifig on 
the log, stopping at a knot-hole .] 

The Chipmunk. 

That's the door of my home. Keep away! I'll 
scratch, — 
I '11 bite! But let us run up and down our play ways 
In the sunshine; but squeak not. 

[ They run up and down to the end of the log and 
back, and stop suddenly.'] 

That was a leaf 
From the oak; it rustled as it fell there by the bush; 
And there 's another dropping in the wind; but I 'm 

afraid. 
That was a thrush hopping through the hazel thicket, — 
But I 'm afraid. I cannot see, though I stand up tall, 
What the thing that moves is. Chizct! Chzit! 
[ The Thing with his feet on the log about to spring 
over. The Chipmunk runs up an oak-tree 
and hides in a bunch of mistletoe. The Neigh- 
bor disappears in a pile of stones. ] 

Scene 2. 

Time, next morning. 

The Thing [lying down on the log listening] . 

Aha, something chimbles in the log, — the little 

brown-stripe beast! 
Now I '11 get him when the sun comes up above the 

pines, 



114 



For he '11 come out to drink and climb the hazel-twigs, The Fall of 
And stuff his cheeks; I know his kin and all their tricks, the Leaf 

[Purrs, dresses his fur , and dozes. ~\ 
The Chipmunk [inside the log\ . 

It is the roar of some great wind; or the rain comes 
From the thunder-place, — that must be the noise, — 

and I '11 not stir; 
Besides, I am afraid, and a shiver pinches down my back. 
I '11 sleep some more. But there is Neighbor Cwink 
Calling from the hazel-thicket; will he get the last nuts, 

think ? 
So I must harvest a while till the rain comes. 

[ Chipmwik starts to leave his nest. As he reaches 

the door where the Thing is watching, there 

is a flash, a loud noise, and the Thing falls 

dead over the knot-hole, the Chipmunk going 

back to his nest.~\ 
It is the thunder-fire; now comes the rain and I shall 

sleep, 
For Cwink and I can get no nuts to-day, 

[ Cwink runs away from the hazel - thicket, 

shrieking with terror.~\ 
And something tells me that what would come has 

come. I '11 sleep. 

The Hunter [coming up, turns over the dead body 
of the Thing. ] 

Ho, ho, unlooked for luck! 
'T was you that killed old Topknot, and ate the chicks 
Of Ruffleneck, and were whetting up for smaller 

game, — 
The little squirrel, nimble, curious, friendly, 



ii5 



The Fall of A bare midget, silken-striped, that makes the big dark 
the Leaf woods 

So cheery with his antics. Luck for me, and luck for him 
I came in time. By your leave, old cat of the Canon, 

\Taking the Thing on his shoulder ,] 
Go home with me and make a soft warm rug 
For two small feet by the winter fire. 

[Hunter goes by> whistling " The Song of the 
Forest Children."] 



116 



ARIEL AND CALIBAN 

Caliban [to Ariel] . 

LO, Ariel, now, I hunger; let me eat; 
I weary digging these dull rocks; 
And thou dost naught but fly and pleat 
Thy wings, — braid in and out, — with fleecy locks 
Of yon bright cloud; I see not where 
Thou feedest, nor on what; to me 
Thy hand is cruel that it has no care 
Because I slave and starve, and yet must be. 
Lo, Ariel, now, give me to eat, 
And let me slumber in these sedges sweet. 

Ariel [to Caliban]. 

Eat, then, thou necessary thing, 
These nuts and berries from the hedge, but haste 
That so I need not stoop my wing 
Below that cloud's gold edge, nor waste 
The evening star but for a clod like thee. 
Sleep, too, thou earth. Yet briefly, see! 

'Tis loss that I must wait, while thou dost snore, 
To measure great Orion's jeweled brand; 
To weave into Homeric warp this island lore, 
The woof of life upon this wondrous shore; 
To say how many aeons yet before 
This circling panicle of worlds shall stand 
In apsis, glowing Alcyone between; 
Or make upon this earth a search so keen 
No secret of the monad may escape unseen. 



117 



Ariel aiid [Ariel soliloquizes^ . 

Caliban F eec }? Who feeds but beasts ? Who sleeps but clods ? 

This dull machine of flesh and bone 

Needs little save a scourge of rods, 

The mind of man is man alone. 

What good were that brute force to find 

And string in order on their thread 

Those beaded stars, and so unwind 

And hold one other secret yet unread ? 

Were that brute force to seize on Space, and bind 

And match with Time that would not wed ? 

To fix relations clear of mote and star? 

Or draw the limits, that, at widest, bar 

The soul's outgoing to the near and far? 

[7<? Caliban]. 

Wilt wake ? Wilt wake, thou earthen earth ? 
Three hours are gone in sodden sleep! 
Take up thy pick-ax, dig for me a girth 
Of ditch about this rocky steep. 
"And wherefore, then ?" 'T were easiest to say 
That thou may'st eat, thou worm, and I forsooth may 

play; 
But 'tis that I may read with one sharp glance 
Creation's tale writ out in rocky circumstance. 

Do but my bidding; groan and fret 
Unto thyself, and ache thy aches; 
What mercy have I — Ariel — that forget 
Fatigue and baffling, all that breaks 
Such weakling things as, made of flesh, 
Cry out and groan, entangled in the mesh 



118 



Of their own wants? Pure spirit made to be Ariel and 

Am I, and hedged round by no necessity. Caliban 

What, slave! Drag not upon my floating hem 
The weight of thy dull hand. Away ! Thy heavy eyes 
Hold down my wings. Thy faltering nerve 
Knits round me some quick-burning spell. 
Away, thou slave! For Ariel shall not swerve. 
Yet where is Ariel's power? I cannot stem 
This flood of fire ! I reel, I cannot rise. 

\Ariel swoons. ~\ 
Caliban. 

Ha! ha! I crush thee, airy fool, 
Beneath the iron of a broken law ! 
T was thy sledge, thy edged tool; 
Thy slave, with slavish form and slavish name, 
Thy slave that could not turn and draw 
His clumsy weapon on a soul of flame? 
I was thy burden-beast that had no need 
To sleep, or rest, or drink, or feed? 
Lo, now, who groans and aches ? Who cannot rest ? 
Who pines and starves because I will not eat? 
Who grovels on the earth and writhes, at worst and 

best? 
And shivers when the sun doth rise, and would entreat 
The stars to set, they are so fiery-full of heat? 
Ha! ha! I suffer too! The jar-nuts pall, 
And flat and tasteless flows the freshet spring; 
And sleep doth never come to my loth eyes, 
That wide awake but stare into the staring skies. 
Unsteady is the voice that once could call 
The jay's call back, and fool the gnawing thing 
That hides ripe filberts in his grass-lined nest; 



119 



Ariel and But twice and thrice I care not when I turn to mould, 
Caliban Ground over by the dew-worm long o' dewy nights, 
So I but venge my slave-lot, cruel, cold; 
So I but keep him back from seeking what he would, 
With heaven-pointing wings, at dark or dawn, 
From seeking 'mong the greater and the lesser lights, 
For what delights him — that ethereal good 
1 know not, but, with hate-sword ever drawn, 
Will hew and hack against, until I die and turn to 

mould, 
Until I die and turn again to crumbled mould. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

A WEDDING-DAY GALLOP 

(early California) 

GALLOP with me, love, away and away, 
To the infinite blue at the end of the day. 
Here at the gate 
Crimhild and Brunswicker wistfully wait; 
Up to the saddle, away and away, 
Far away, far, to the end of the day. 

Here by the river and there by the plain, 
Here in the sunlight and there in the rain; 
Off round the mountain's bewildering base, 
Off at a joyously perilous pace, — 
Off and away, love. 

There by the sea, along the gray shore, 
Across the dim desert, miles score and score; 
Away and away and always with me, 
Gallop and gallop forever with me. 

Now by the sea! 
Feet on the sand keeping time with the waves, 

Smile on the lips and flush on the cheek, — 
Now a smile, just a glance, all our happiness saves 

Each for the other; that language we speak 
As we gallop and gallop o'er weed and o'er shell. 
Hark to the waves as they rise and they swell, 

At the swing of the berylline sea. 



121 



A Wedding- Now the waves gallop on like hounds at our feet, 
day Gallop And ever the wavering moments repeat 

Crimhild's and Brunswieker's gallopings fleet, 
Along by the sea, 
The chalcedonine, wavering, berylline sea. 

The dun desert now! 

Level sand, ever sand, not a hillock or cleft; 

Lizard here, squirrel there, hurries right, scurries left; 

Sagebrush and bitterwood mingle and flow, 

Wavelike and serpentine, on as we go. 

Shadow as scant as the dews and the damp — 

'Ware, there, good Crimhild! a snake coils to spring! 

Ah, her foot cleaves him dead with a metrical stamp, 

With a flash of the eyes like the flare of a lamp. 
Now a lift of white mane like the beat of a wing, 
Neck to neck she is matching black Brunswieker's 
swing. 



A palm-shadowed pool, 

Deeply dark, deeply cool, 
Desert-girt, green-jeweled, alone in the land, 
Like the emerald engraven I 've set on this hand. 

Rest, rest in its shade here, thou heart of my heart. 
Here 's a cup from my scrip. Here is fruit ripe and rare. 
Juice of citron, bread of snow, yellow figs in a rime 
Of sweet dust; jellied cherries, white once on a time — 
Dost remember? — in bloom overhead 
When hearkened thy heart to the word that mine said. 



122 



Dim lie the blue mountains; and there waits the dusk A Wedding- 
With a star in her forehead, — a home, O my heart, day Gallop 
To enfold us and hold us; a gardened repose 
Of lilies in alleys, and roses, and musk 

Of ripe grapes from the vineyard, all agleam and apart, 
In green oaken glades as my heart sees and knows. 
As my heart sees and knows, 
There 's thy window, netted round with a jasmine that 

gropes, 
Overclimbing the purple of low heliotropes, 
To look with its numberless stars on thy face, 
And sweeten the garden with new-gathered grace. 



There shines the home-candle, through alley and vine. 
Home, home, at last, love, — thine, thine ! And mine 
Only so! Wide the gate, dear and blessed the door. 
Now enter, and dwell, be at rest, heart and thought, 
evermore. 



So endeth our gallop, our day of all days, 
Through the land, by the sea, 

Through the desert wild ways, 

Together, together, and always to be. 



123 



THE NEW HOUSE AND HOME 
L. F. and M. G. C. 

REAR the walls and spread the roof; 
Fashion stairway, hall, and hearth; 
Lay the doorsill far aloof 

From noisy highway's din and dearth; 
Make the windows high and low, 
That the pleasant rooms may know 
Sky and garden, heaven and earth. 
Yet from these the heart may roam; 
These make the house but not the home. 

Pictures, statues, dainty nooks, 

Flowing curtains, hearthstone clear, 
Loving trifles, use-worn books, 

Heart-remembering things and dear, 
Gifts of love and gifts of grace, 
Meet the glance in every place, — 
Who could not be happy here? 

Yet from these the heart may roam; 
They make the house but not the home. 

Plant the rose-tree, train the vine, 

Wind the smooth walks in and out; 
Set the borders trim and fine, 

That the paths may lead about 
Where the garden ways are sweet, 
Where soft grass beguiles the feet; 

Yet from these the heart may roam; 

They all may be and not mean home. 



124 



Add sweet music; will these stay The New 

In his course the morning star? House and 

Make our paths a perfect way? Home 

Bring life's secret from afar? 
Nay, life's secret is from near; 

Worthless were these things that fade, 

Were they all our anchor made; 
Heart's love only keeps us here. 

Ah! from this we can not roam! 

This makes our house, this builds our home. 



; 25 



NOVEMBER RAIN 

"""PIS morning, dim with quiet rain; 
1 A cloud of blackbirds on the wing 

Sweep out of sight 

In rhythmic flight, 
And leave for proof that they can sing 
A heart-stirred memory of the spring 
Reverberate within the brain, 
That rhymes it with November rain. 

'Tis morning, gray with quiet rain; 
A lark, from sight by earth-hues caught, 

Alternate feeds, 

And blithely leads 
In sweet response of song my thought, 
Until, I know not how, is wrought 
An unpremeditated strain 
That rhymes it with November rain. 



126 



A NOVEMBER POPPY 

IN a low brown meadow on a day 
Down by the autumn sea, 
I saw a flash of sudden light 
In a sweep of lonely gray; 
As if a star in a clouded night 
One moment had looked on me 
And then withdrawn; as if the spring 
Had sent an oriole back to sing 
A silent song in color, where 
Other silence was too hard to bear. 

I found it and left it in its place, 
The sun-born flower in cloth of gold 
That April owns, but cannot hold 
From spending its glory and its grace 
On months that always love it less, 
But take its splendid alms in their distress. 

Back I went through the gray and the brown, 
Through the weed -woven trail to the distant town; 
The flower went with me, fairly \vrought 
Into the finest fiber of my thought. 



GO FORTH AND TEACH 

WHEN thou hast finer morals than the beech. 
More inward grace than elm, nor less 
Of outward patience, then go forth and teach 
The hurrying city of thy graciousness 
Enough to salt its bread and reach 
Its blood and drive it, under stress, 
To higher impulse, nobler thought and speech. 

When thou hast learned its leisure of the grass, 
Hast mastered for thyself its book of laws, 
Then set the currents of thy life to pass 
Through channels wrought by equal cause 
To broader fields of sequence; skies of brass 
Nor desert earth shall make thee pause 
Ere thou, thyself, shalt treasure great amass. 

Then thou shalt know that life holds all in fee, 

As, worthy to itself, itself it makes; 

That worth unto itself through this must be: 

That to its neighbor, high or low, it breaks 

Some loaf of life, and, holding thus the key 

Of soul-relation to all life, it takes 

Its joy from self- forgetting ministry. 



128 



MY BEECH-TREE 

I KNOW a tree whose branches meet 
Above my head, beneath my feet, 
In arches green, in shadows sweet. 

I know not whether now its leaves 

Still whisper in October eves, 

Or May its springtime splendor weaves. 

It may be dead and turned to dust, 
But somewhere, still, persistent trust 
Believes it lives, is sure it must. 

Though cooler reason would put by 
This subtle theme with hozv, and why, 
This faith survives, — it did not die. 

Within my thought its branches wave, 
Its rain-wet leaves my forehead lave, 
It still gives all that once it gave. 

Yet, half way up in its strong arms, 
I sit and feel the thrill that charms 
Its own cool life and mine from harms. 

No leaf of it can ever fade; 

In something of myself arrayed, 

It was therewith immortal made. 



129 



SELF 



YON jay that sits so pert upon the bough, 
Though but an egg a June or two ago, 
Knows now the universe was made for him, — 
Was made for him for perch and nest, 
No prettier logic in his head for proof 
Than spiteful peck and hoarse kul-leer. 

Yon lithe, long leopard, crouching there, 
Where unaware the gentle deer crop grass 
Upon this verdant earth of theirs, 
Knows well that till he change his spots 
The universe is his. 

Yon baby in his mother's arms 

Will have the newly-risen moon 

To ease the ache of coming teeth 

Upon its silver rim, — "Give me the moon!" 

Dare you deny the universe is his ? 

Yon king, with millions at his beck, 
Will prove, with blood and life not his, 
The world was made that he might rule, 
And men were made that he might prove it his. 

Yon beauty, royal with youth's smile, 
Must pick and choose the world's gifts o'er, 
And keep and throw away at will, — 
Now prove the universe is not for her. 

O potent self! In bird, or beast, or man, 
Assert thy place, supremely first, 
But know there is a first that shall be last; 
There is a last that never shall be first. 



130 



THE SHEPHERD'S MOUNTAIN 
J. K. M. 

FORBID me not, O friend, in birthday words of 
praise 
To speak in allegory thus of you, 
With this excuse, — to wish you joy and length of days. 

There dwelt a shepherd, once, beside the sea, 

And much, they said, of books and men he knew; 

But all his wisdom fragrance had of wood 

Or field or mountain; words of his could be 

Poetic with the waving of a flowering tree, 

Or strong and serious like the bitter-good 

Of herb medicinal; or they could move 

With the majestic motion of a cloud, to prove 

Majestic truths; but oft in parable they burned 

With mountain images sublime, aglow 

With light that always is; and oft they turned 

To holy solitudes upon the heights, to show 

That men might learn, like him, to go 

Where they could meet with God, and know. 

And now his words, men thought, of Shasta seemed, 

And now with some Imperial Mountain gleamed, 

Whereof he knew the secret places best 

That give the souls of men supremest rest. 



131 



THE GREEK GIRL'S 
INVOCATION TO ATHENA 

O DWELLER in the holy mountain, hear, 
And to my portals come, and, coming, flash 
On all I am the light of thy clear eyes, 
Thy unforgiving eyes, whose search I fear, 
Yet crave as my release from ways unwise; 
Complacent hours of mine have known the crash 
And judgment of thine impartial spear, 
And found its wounding better than caresses 
Of her, that goddess of the Golden Tresses. 

Athena, come. Door and window wait, 
And porch and twining vine and hearthstone wait; 
The table hath for thee the golden plate; 
The chamber hath for thee the couch of state; 
Oh, dwell with me, and be my word, my thought. 
My eloquence of deed, that shall be wrought, 
But only as thou plannest it to be, 
When I companioned am of thee. 



132 



ro THE WILD PENNYROYAL 

ROYAL little herb and wise! 
Other plants flaunt out in gold, 
Crimson tints or scarlet dyes, 
All to catch men's careless eyes; 
Humbly thou dost dream and plot 
Still to live thyself forgot; 
Choosest out a dwelling-spot 
Underneath the forest-trees, 
By the field's edge or the brook; 
Up and down thine instincts look, 
Gather forth their essences 
From the maple and the oak, 
From the briar-rose and the fern, 
Spicewood bush and purple scoke, 
Elm and ash and clean-limbed beech; 
Whatsoever these can teach 
Thou hast art enough to learn 
While thy little torch doth burn. 

There thou dwellest, gathering in 

Wisdom through thy fairy leaf; 

All thy stems and roots begin 

Patience' tranquil web to spin. 

Thou forgiveness dost contrive 

For the foot that brings thee grief, — 

Nay, dost give to every thief 

All thy industry can win. 

Charity beyond compare 

Surely proves thee more than fair. 



133 



To the Wild Aimlessly, one woodland day 

Pennyroyal When 'twas joy to be alive, 

Turning from a foot-worn way, 
But half-aware, my wandering feet 
Trespassed on thy borders sweet; 
Wafted upward and around 
Came thy protest almost gay, 
Almost praising what did wound. 
But, prophetic, didst thou see 
Out of what thou wast to me 
Flowers of thought and feeling bloom 
In these distant fields and days? 
Prescient cunning, making room 
Through my comfort for self-praise! 
Cold suspicion — let it go ! 
Little didst thou care or know 
That a moment's flash could hold 
Summer glory, autumn gold, 
Wealth of springs and winters old. 

Comfort thee, thou little weed; 
Thoughts of thee are dear indeed. 
When a woodland wind blows down 
From the hills beyond the town, 
When a salt breeze from the sea 
Brings its message in to me, 
Grateful pleasure takes the gift 
As the moment's golden drift; 
Looks beyond the narrow street 
To the fields and pastures sweet, 
To the green waves of the bay 
As a part of one more day; 



134 



But when Memory's hand unwinds To the Wild 

Distaffs dyed and spun and reeled — Pennyroyal 

(Whereof something each one finds 

Labeled for the solitude 

In the which his soul has set 

Time, deliberate to forget!) — 

Ah, when, Memory's doors unsealed, 

All life's hidden things revealed, 

Forgotten griefs, remembered good, 

All remembered good that grows 

In the halls of her repose, — 

She to please my heart doth bring 

Scent of this familiar field, 

Breath of that beloved wood 

Where thou growest close and sweet 

As of old about my feet; 

There, around in regnant groups 

Stand the oak-trees and the elms, 

And beneath them come the troops 

Liberal Nature hastes to bring 

When with giving she o'erwhelms 

All the gardens of the wood 

With the riches of the spring; 

Then my heart owes this to thee, 

That beside the Western Sea 

Thou canst make youth's paradise 

In perennial beauty rise; 

Set the domes of beech-tree tents 

Under gloom of Tamalpais; 

Make red fields of clover glow 

On the windy slopes below; 

Mingle with the salt sea scents 

Subtle breath of woodland bower, 

Linden bloom and wayside flower. 



135 



To the Wild Ah, the story is the same 

Pennyroyal That from ancient Scripture came: 

Them of low estate He gives 
Places which the great have sought; 
Through the lowliest thing that lives 
Miracles of love are wrought. 



136 



IN HERMITAGE WITH FANCY 

THE clock strikes four. Deep starry skies, 
A sinking moon, a jagged line of roof, 
And mountain's far black ridge; my window frames 
This picture dim for dim unwilling eyes 
Too soon recalled from rest. 

She stands aloof 
There, — the dear angel, Sleep. With all her names 
Of beauty, poet given, have I besought 
Her tendance till the east turns red: 
But nay, she will not ! Farther still withdrawn — 
Remote as those fair fables she once wrought 
Of dreams for me, reluctant to be led 
From fireside play. 

Then come, thou Fancy kind. 
We '11 will to dream with open eye till dawn, 
Like Chaucer's little birds, and drive the day 
To come, the day that 's gone, so far away 
They shall not ope the portals of the mind 
To let the world's affairing in, till the sun 
Has waked the world. 

Suppose, now, this: 
We '11 build a pleasure-house for you and me; 
I know a spring whose waters run 
And skip along the mountain-side, most free, 
Most like a frolic child. Azaleas there unfold 
Their flowers, and there' the budding clematis 
Still starts with whiteness. And suppose, now, this: 
That there we make our pleasure-house to be. 
" Built like to that the century's king of song 
Once made for his own soul? Or like to his, 



137 



In Hermitage That other, with his friar and his room of pink?" 
with Fancy Nay, now, not so! A log-built cabin, brown 
With bark, a window in a chink, 
And low of roof; a chimney — think ! 
Such as you knew when all the years were long, 
And all the bars to pleasure-fields were down. 

The clock strikes five: — and stars, and yet the stars. 

We still will dream, for Fancy 's loyal yet. 
Go thou with me — for I can go — and stay 
An aeon in an hour, in hermitage 
Among the mountains. I can lead the way 
From here to there; and now the there is here. 

Around this spot are prints of Nature's feet, 
And ways there are to learn her counsel sweet. 
For here she gives long leisure, days, and nights 
Of peace, wood-silent, — fields of calm 
And brook-led paths by beds of mint and balm, 
The morning breath of trees, and darling sights 
Of small shy birds among the sheltering trees. 
Dost marvel, Fancy, why I choose not these 
With dish of pulse and cotton gown 
If need were, rather than the streeted town 
And all that better it may seem to give 
While in the stream of hurry I must live ? 

And here, at last, should I but choose to stay, 
Invoking comrades with a scholar's daring thrift, 
Might Wordsworth come familiar to my cabin door, 
And sit to hear the flapping of my fire, and say 
His words of tranquil wisdom. Yea, in joy and awe, 
Might I hear Milton's unmatched lyre, 



133 



Beneatn a sky, noon-blue, or all aflame with fire In Hermitage 

Of mountain sunset, or in the roar with Fancy 

Of gusty rain, or sweeping, hail-white flaw, 
Or in the eternal calm of starry heights, 
In long, reposeful, heaven-clear nights. 

Here in some wild garden of the pines, 

Oft might I walk with Emerson, serene and sage, 

And feel the calm of this old earth 

Down to her center, up from her earliest age, 

The dim and dateless era of her birth, 

Filter through all his golden-worded lines. 

Along pine-fragrant alleys, there would sweep a gentle 

wind, 
And Browning's Pippa singing her clear song 
Would cross the web of sunshine it had spinned 
Between the swaying limbs; a whole day long 
(So large would be my leisure) might I, else, enjoy 
The tender presence of Fidele, or ask and wear 
The ring of Canace, and learn your ways and words, 
And be kindred with you close, you gentle birds. 
But sure am I, whatever might befall, 
One nearer than these kings of song should come 
And teach me more than I can hear 
In windharp, smiting leaves, or droppings clear 
From rain-tipped boughs, or the orchestral sum 
Of woodland sounds; and more than I can call 
My own in bird, or tree, or flower, or all 
That mountain color-glory, — bands of purpled mist, 
Cloud-gray, night-blue, dim and misty blue, — 
(Were it a purple now, or whatso royal hue?) 
And all the glimmering lights and shades that hardly are, 
They seem so little real, look so scarcely true, 
So far removed, so far. 



139 



In Hermitage Ah, he should come, that child-eyed seer 
with Fancy Who sang such gracious things of hill and field; 
Who had companionship with star and wave, 
With wind and brook, and loved the souls of men so 

near 
He feared to lose one chance to say his word 
Before his time to go. Him have I heard 
In very presence — from him have learned to save 
My hour from trivial waste. Imperfect, so, the * * choir 
Invisible ' ' about my cabin fire, 
If he come not. 

The mossy root, the leaf 
That drops amid the affluent woods and dies, 
The winding shell that greatens year by year 
Its fairy crypt, the little ground-rose, dear 
As morning — have I the thought that spies 
Out these and not the thought to mark 
When one has gone who made us smile with tears 
And weep with smiles, or, at his winsome will, 
Convoyed to stately dwellings through the arc 
Prismatic of a shell? 

Something more 
It were to feel him living still, 
Among us wholly, still our own 
To speak to, smile with, learn from, follow. 
The realm of thought is cold, from shore to shore, 
Cold, and for the heart forever hollow. 

To be alone, — always to be alone 

With shades and voices though of Sovereign Lords, 

Were that all well? Not once to know the hand's 

Warm touch, the eyes' glad kindling from the heart ? 

Shall they not come, the living in these lands, 

With those that live large lives apart 

In lands we know not ? Yea, my Fancy, hark ! 



140 



Though now the noonday bards have flown, In Hermitage 

The century's twilight shelters some to chant with Fancy 

Along the years that edge the mystic dark 

Before a New Time's dawn. There are who weave 

By paths of glowing life, their tales of awe 

And make their songs amid the city's din; 

There are who sing by hillside streams, and haunt 

The glens of life. Now, what if we could win 

These hither to this cabined hermitage 

To live an zeon in an hour? 

Secrets unraveled, go promise to them, and tales 

Of the little wood-people that creep 

In the thickets all dusky and deep, 

Or hide in the rocks of the streams, 

And play on the terraces mossed 

Over with deer-grass and matted with leaves; 

A thought's respite promise, — a breath of repose, 

Just while the vireo another long strand 

Into her new nest works and weaves, 

Just while the dew is bright on the fresh-blown rose, 

And wild-plums for the autumn planned 

Break from their blossoms by light winds fanned. 

And everywhere peace, — everywhere! 
Pine- fragrant stirrings of air, 
Sweet forest murmurs mysterious; 
Gentle, serious, 
Hardly heard 
Callings of bush-dwelling bird, 
They may answer in thought and in word; 
Companioned by brook and by tree, 
By Nature herself they may be. 



141 



In Hermitage The striking clock ! The ended hour of dream 
with Fancy Brings day. Now I shall. never know 

How real my Fancy might have made it grow. 

The stars are gone behind a sky 

Of veiling mist, and, white and high, 

My window looks on things that seem 

And are not in the cloud that fills 

All space. There is no more a line of hills, 

A jagged roof, but day, just day 

That seeks, and forces, and must have its sovereign way. 



142 



ODE FOR FOREFATHERS' DAT 

[Read at the celebration in Oakland, December, 1887. ] 



The heights at which we dwell we choose; 
Horizon lines of prospect widen at the will, 
Or, narrowing, frame the acre-land we till; 
The far-spread blue illimitable smiles, 
Or bends a pent-house dome above the dews 
That bead our garden-plots; miles and miles, 
The soul of fancy takes her soaring way; 
With inch worm spans slows on the thing of clay. 

Had he ( saith one ) the vision that could catch 
True glimpse of sequence, overarching cause, 
Then would he dare to make his doing match 
His fair ideals; nor turn back, nor pause 
For hindrances, nor faint to miss applause, 
Until, one day, the towers of his ideal 
Should rise above their city, tangible and real. 
His aspirations should not fade and die, 
Or, ineffectual, scorned to mere opinion, lie. 

Had he (saith one) no clog of fate-imposed care, 
He need not shame the truth and compromise 
With what is false, and, dumb with self-despair, 
Let live the lie that brings him bread, nor rise 
To some great glow of spirit, and, self-disdaining, 

show 
His coward heart what highway it must henceforth 

know. 



143 



Ode for II 

■* Not so those oceanic men who wrought 

A track for conscience, laid its beams upon the sea; 
With faith, large-limbed, held man-made strictures 

naught, 
And scorned the metes and bounds that said '* Ye are 

not free." 
What to them were clog, or hindrance — end still 

undescried ? 
And what were self, or calm, or peace unsanctified? 
They saw the line of truth and duty 

In rhythmic monotone move on, 
And knew it for that line of beauty 

For eyes of men divinely drawn. 
This they chose, and, upward led, they saw 
Glimpses far of Freedom's snow-clad height, 
Of Liberty's blue dome and stars of awe, 
And dawns celestial white. 

Then seemed their limits narrower than the mind; 

Then seemed a mortal lack in their own bread, 

Sprouted from so thin a rind 

Of juiceless Old World soil, 

Of word-bound, dark-age thought, 

That miserly repaid their toil, 

With husks their hunger fed, 

And, asking all, gave naught. 

Ill 

And so they left the land 

No longer dear 
Above the beatings of the heart, 

No longer dear 
Above the labor of the hand, 



144 



No longer dear Ode for 

Above that dearest part Forefathers' 

Of human heritage, Day 

In every clime, in every age — 
The freedom of the soul, 
Supreme and whole. 

IV 

And so they came 
In beautiful Liberty's beautiful name. 

And has no storial hand 
Kept note of how the waiting land 
Hailed the new-type man, square to the New World's 

need, 
Who thought no thought into a deed 
That had no warrant in his creed ? 
Nay, none. Yet never symphony so grand 
Came from the heart of man to men 
As this that was their welcome then: 

The winds their trumpets blew, 

The white foam flew, 

And far by sandy reach, 

Along the icy beach, 

A still-renewing cadence drew; 

The dark waves dashed, 

And the rocks their cymbals clashed, 

And, permeant, the undertone 

Of the diapason, deep and lone, 

Of the all-including ocean overbore 

The leafless diapente sounding evermore 

From the forest on the shore. 

Apotheosis of lamentation ! 

Restless, longing lamentation 

Made the paean of the planting of a nation ! 



145 



Ode for V 

Forefathers^ Q symphony of svmp homes ! 

9 O eloquence of earth and seas, 

Beyond the reach of poet's rhyme ! 

Yet voices more sublime 

Answered fitly there, 

In the unison of prayer: 

" Father of all, 

Out of the sea 

We cry to thee ! 
Oh, hear our call ! 
Out of the winter' s cold 
And the storm-wind's fold 
We lift our hearts away to thee, 
Into the warmth and light 
Of thy love and care, 
Thanks and praise we bear. 
Thou hast brought us out of Night 
Into Liberty's sweet air. 
Father of all, ourselves we give 
That thy truth may live." 

Outer wall and corner-stone of prayer ! 
Surely, temple edified so fair 
The centuries will spare ! 

VI 

As Homer saw the Prospect Wide, nor knew 

The bounds by Nature set, nor dreamed nor thought 

to dream 
How great man's mind should one day make it seem, 
The Pilgrim Heroes, from their mount of vision, drew, 
With eyes of faith, a far perspective, true 



146 



To God-given promise, yet to them too dim Ode for 

For all surmise, except obedience to jHim. Forefathers' 

In a land they did not know, transplanted side by side, Day 
Their love and hope and faith, these three, till now 
abide. 

VII 

They wrought — not thinking of themselves they 

wrought ! — 
What strong twists in the cables of the State, 
What pure runs in the blood of Western thought; 
Whatever makes us permanent and great 
Entered with them at Plymouth's stormy gate; 
Praise to their names and to their great deeds glory ! 
The Golden Gate shall be their salvatory. 

What honor to their memory can we bring 

In these far days, in this far summer land? 

What were our gold, or songs that we might sing? 

Ah, more unto their honor, should we stand 

Fulfilling what they toiled for, worthy, heart and 

hand, 
To bear their names and add our deeds to the story — 
The Golden Gate shall be their salvatory! 

" Hail to them, thrice hail ! " the west sea chimes, 
Like morning bells upon the warm west shore, 
And we, in these new years, these good new times, 
Recount their deeds, pronounce their names once 

more; 
Ay, proudly so, until our new land's lore 
Shall weave this golden thread with her own glory, 
And the Golden Gate shall be their salvatory ! 



M7 



DEC 24 1901 



